Traffic calming: fact and fiction

Australia has been a world leader in implementation of measures to moderate the impacts of in living areas. We have called this Local Area Traffic Management or Residential Street Management. Similar measures have been applied in many other countries, modified to suit their local conditions. In Germany, measures to support 30 km/h speed limits and zones of care and to promote the greening of streets (similar in type and scope to those in Australia) have been described as verkehrsberuhigung. This translates as traffic pacification or traffic calming. Recently, this term has been used to describe a much wider concept of management and suppression in cities. Exaggerated claims have been made about the extent of application and success of such programs. This paper describes the differences between these approaches to traffic calming, suggests a way of seeing them as complementary, and points out the nature of social and structural changes that would be required to achieve the calmed cities currently being visualised (A).