Four speakers gave presentations at the symposiums, Ole Djurhuus, Head of the Design Secretariat of the Ministry of Transport, Copenhagen, Denmark, Professor Carmen Hass-Klau , University of Wuppertal, Germany and her associate at her British consulting firm Inge Nold, Environment & Transport Planning, Brighton, UK. and finally Ian Lockwood P. Eng., of J.P. Braaksma & Assoc., in Ottawa represented the Canadian perspective.
The purpose of the symposium was to remove barriers to information on traffic calming and to provide inspiration to municipalities in British Columbia. So many useful and significant statements were made on the subject it is difficult to select the best, but here are a few. Although the population density is higher in Europe and the street layout narrow, unlike North America, some members of the audience came to the conclusion that, here in Cascadia, we could benefit from experimenting to develop our own measures. Europeans place greater emphasis on the importance of a multipurpose street environment. In fact, performance of some streets is evaluated in terms of the number of optional activities occurring along it. Traffic calming started as a means of improving the quality of life and resulted in halving the number of accidents along calmed streets. Real estate value goes up on a traffic calmed street.
Traffic calming without a commitment to transit, cycling, pedestrianisation and traffic management, is largely cosmetic. A city without a cycle network is not a proper city. In Europe urban space is so interesting, people begin to do creative things and the city becomes a place where people want to stay over the weekend, unlike North America, where cities are deserted for the countryside at that time. Traffic calming in rural villages in Austria is often carried out by herding a flock of geese slowly up the main street.
Engineers use outmoded measures of performance for the transportation system like level of service which only measures the service for motor vehicles. Urban transportation systems are very complex like wetlands. But engineers use the automobile as a measure of the transport system's performance.
We have elected to use the "purple loosestrife" (a noxious weed) of the urban environment instead of a more vulnerable indicator species such as the pedestrian to measure performance. There are not enough women employed/involved in all levels of the development of the transportation system. They look after the children who also need a better voice.
Traffic calming is a multidisciplinary problem. Property values rise when streets are calmed. The engineers and politicians do not know what the public wants. Traffic calming is a network problem. If you solve the problem on one section of road and are not careful it will just go elsewhere. When the streets are traffic calmed correctly, traffic disappears, for the same reason that it increases when roads are widened or new facilities built. You cannot use the cookie cutter approach. Every neighbourhood is unique. Each traffic calming measure should have a higher significance.
This report was prepared by Dr. Melanie Perkins, P. Eng.. For a copy of the full 23 page proceedings plus a notebook of references, please contact: Francis van Loon, Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition, GVCC, 1275 Oscar Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2X6 or, messages may be left on their voice-mail at 604-480-5155, or e-mail to Francis at uz392@freenet.victoria.bc.ca