Traffic Calming Devices

People speed on Scott and Savoline, that’s no news to residents living on these streets. What we, residents, cannot figure out is why traffic calming devices were not built on these roads.  Afterall, if you design a wide road like Scott (or Savoline) then (some) people will drive on them like they’re on Autobahn. 

These ideas are strictly for residential streets (like Scott and Savoline).  I don’t know which ones of these I support, but here are some ideas I have seen in cities I’ve lived in (I lived in 8 different cities in a 7 year period after my wife & I first got married):

• Bends that are safe at speed limit  (image from Seattle)
  
  
• Median with trees. Southern MD and Washington, DC (affluent areas) does this really well. I lived in a community of small townhomes in Gaithersburg, MD and even there the median had three rows of trees. This also prevents people from passing from beyond the solid yellow line.
  This shot is from Maryland (this was done on an old road, so the trees in the median aren’t grown yet):
  

• Create a physical barrier after a few parking spots. For Scott & Savoline that means people won’t be able to pass from the right.  Yet another from MD:
   
• Traffic circle (again, I am told by people that it works. I hated them in DC and Maryland and VA did not have them. Seattle neighbourhoods do have these though and there they were okay. This picture is from Seattle:
   
  
• Lonnnngg speed bumps (not conventional ones). Here’s a picture from Bellevue, WA of a speed bump that does nothing at reasonable speed but does hurt at a higher speed:
  

• Raised intersection that work as the bullet above. This is a raised intersection from Gaithersburg, MD. It also works fine at normal speed (costs < $15K to build):
  

• Finally, do not create long parallel neighbourhood roads that become bypasses for real streets (eg. people taking Scott Blvd to avoid driving on Bronte / Tremaine and Derry). These streets should be for people living in the community, not for people going from one major street to another.

These are some ideas.  Not all will work here. But they should be considered and implemented so builders like Mattamy or Fieldgate builds them when they first construct residential roads (so the Town doesn’t have to build them later).