DIY traffic calming
How’s this for an innovative, low-cost DIY traffic calming measure? A stretch of rope laid across the street:
Our Man in Tirana posted this in July and noted that cars “almost always slow to a crawl when approaching” it.
There’s a whole collection of community initiatives to take traffic calming into their own hands at the International Home of Roadwitching, most notably the works of the Beech Croft Residents’ Association in cooperation with Sustrans. Here are a few I found particularly interesting:
Cars parked diagonally so they “stare” down cars entering the street, additionally creating an irregular zigzag contour (while in reality leaving a wide enough strip of the carriageway open for cars to pass):
Paintwork that extends across the whole street and both pavements to blur the distinction between pavement and carriageway:
Onstreet cycle parking:
The latter is great because it could also solve a common problem in London: There are often not enough Sheffield stands to lock your bike up, but putting them in on the pavement would make the already narrow pavement untolerably crowded for pedestrians (especially wheelchair users, people with baby buggies etc). I think it would be more than justified to sacrifice a minimal amount of car parking space: I bet you could easily fit Sheffield stands for at least six bicycles in the parking space of just one car.
Notably, all these DIY traffic calming measures work by introducing unexpected elements into an environment that has become so predictable for drivers that they perceive no danger and hence drive too fast. The unexpected elements create uncertainty and ambiguity, and the hope is that this increases drivers’ perception of danger, which in turn will make them take action to reduce that danger, namely by driving more slowly. As such, this concept has much in common with the Shared space/ Naked Streetsconcept that is currently gaining popularity across Europe and thankfully slowly taking over from the mentality of the 60’s trough 80’s that relied on segregation, such as pedestrian barriers.
However, I’d be very interested how long-lasting the effect is. Do the cars in Tirana still slow down to a crawl months after the rope has been laid across the street (assuming it’s still there)? How long until drivers get used to, and immune to, a row of cars “staring them down” when they enter the Beech Croft steet?
Maybe then the residents will have to resort to more drastic measures, such as this guy: