The Key to Slowing Traffic is Street Design, Not Speed Limits
Street design dictates how fast people drive and how safe they feel. A wide, straight road invites speeding, regardless of the posted limit. Narrower lanes, tighter corners, and visual cues like trees and streetlights naturally slow traffic.
What Does It Mean When a Prank 60 Mph Sign Goes Unnoticed?
Many of these measures draw on an approach called shared space, pioneered by Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer. In 1968 he designed a residential street in the city of Delft where equal priority is given to cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, forcing road users to pay attention to one another. “When you don’t exactly know who has right of way,
... See moreTom Standage • A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a 14-foot lane
... See moreJeff Speck • Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
“Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few.”45
Jeff Speck • Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
The introduction of traffic lights, combined with safety campaigns, the demonization of dangerous drivers, and attempts to codify traffic rules might have been expected to reduce road…
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Tom Standage • A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
“Staggered” lighting was set up so that lights would always be green for a motorist moving at a particular speed (usually 25 mph). The first such system, installed on Sixteenth Street in Washington, D.C.,…
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Tom Standage • A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
Cities across the country are now thinking about different ways to make walking safer in cities and more attractive for routine daily trips. Vision Zero, a larger pedestrian safety plan with the goal of zero traffic fatalities, is underway. As pedestrian deaths are largely the result of being struck by an automobile, efforts to promote and enforce
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