Traffic Calming

They're cheap. They get the job done. And residents wanted them.

Seattle started installing traffic circles in the early 1970s, and now there are more than 1,200 throughout the city.

If your city's transportation department and its stormwater management department were to team up to put storm drainage in just the right places, it could be a very cost-efficient way to manage runoff while creating permanent, attractive separation between bike and car traffic.

A pilot project in Columbus, Georgia, is the latest chapter in an effort to improve walking, bicycling, and public space in this city along the Alabama border.

A traffic circle free-for-all that's been a constant source of danger for bike riders and pedestrians in Washington, DC, is about to get a one-week makeover.

Five years ago, Streetfilms was in the UK town of Warrington to talk with the great folks behind 20's Plenty For Us, a largely volunteer group trying to get speed limits reduced to 20 mph. The first film drew broad interest in the 20's Plenty movement, and on a recent trip I caught up with them again.

Advocates for safer streets in North Carolina have beaten back an attempt to outlaw street designs that put people first.

With a fast-growing transit network, Denver is grappling with how to build walkable places around its new rail lines, and the Denver Business Journal is running a package of stories about the potential for transit-oriented development. Overall it looks like a solid introduction to the notion that Denver needs to reduce car dependence, but the series did take an unfortunate detour into "war-on-cars" fantasy-land today with a he-said/she-said piece titled "Are transit-oriented developments a campaign against cars?"

On some streets, getting drivers to stop speeding might be as easy as eliminating a few stripes. That's the finding from a new study from Transport for London [PDF].