‘Traffic Calming’

The Legislative Council will soon consider a “traffic calming” ordinance proposed by its own ordinance subcommittee. The serenity evoked by the name of this ordinance is not likely to be experienced by motorists who encounter the apparatus of traffic calming: speed humps, speed lumps, speed tables, roundabouts, chicanes, neckdowns, and chokers. The concept of traffic calming assumes that some drivers literally need to be jolted from their complacency about ignoring speed limits and physically diverted from the distractions that make them such a menace to public safety. The idea is to restore some sense of calm to streets and neighborhoods where these complacent and distracted drivers threaten to run down both unwary pedestrians and the quality of life.

The proposed ordinance is simple enough. It authorizes the Newtown Police Department and the Police Commission to implement the traffic calming program subject to recognized design standards and practices. It requires procedures and guidelines that open the program to public scrutiny and review through public hearings and performance reports. It also requires financial planning and budgeting in accordance with the town’s normal budgeting practices and procedures. Creating the ordinance, however, is the easy part. Implementing measures that actually slow or divert traffic in a way that does not create as many problems as it solves will be the real challenge.

Traffic engineers know that managing traffic hazards arising from speed and congestion is like playing Whack-A-Mole; alleviating traffic pressures in one area creates new pressures in another area. Unless there is a reduction of the total number of vehicles plying Newtown’s highways, or more roads are built to accommodate them, traffic calming efforts are not likely to do much more than shift the problems around. (Perhaps the day is approaching when the price of gas will convert our motor vehicle traffic problems into bicycle traffic problems, but living as we do in a 60-square-mile town, we really don’t want to think about the practical consequences of that.)

When the Legislative Council approves this ordinance, as it is expected to do, we would urge Newtown’s Police Department and Police Commission to use it judiciously. The local police have already stepped up traffic enforcement activities, bringing a new caution and awareness to motorists on local roads. The result of this campaign has been to apply a measure of traffic calming where it is most needed: in the minds of drivers. Traffic enforcement should remain Newtown’s prime tactic for attacking this problem. We should leave the humps, lumps, neckdowns, and chokers as options of last resort for use only in high-traffic, high-hazard areas where the police department’s enforcement efforts prove ineffective.