01697586

Component

New York City’s Neighborhood Slow Zones (NSZs) program, the first systematic area-wide traffic calming program in a major US city, was inspired by London’s Slow Zones. However, while London’s zones were associated with statistically significant reductions in traffic casualties, the zones in New York were not. In this paper, the author uses a policy transfer framework to determine if street design contributed to the insignificant traffic safety impacts of area-wide traffic calming in New York. The author uses both quantitative and qualitative data on the traffic calming devices implemented in 20-mph zones in both cities. While speed humps were the only device used to slow traffic in New York City, London’s 20-mph zones used a much broader range of traffic calming devices. Further, the quantity of traffic calming devices was much higher in London. The large difference in the street designs used in 20-mph zones in each city suggests that New York’s more skeletal version of area-wide traffic calming contributed to the disappointing results in that city. Barriers to a more complete transfer of street designs for 20-mph zones include the cost of, and public opposition to, more robust traffic calming measures, in addition to the emergence of other traffic safety priorities in New York. Despite the NSZ program’s shortcomings, The author argues that the program was a partial success.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB10 Standing Committee on Transportation Safety Management.

19-03775

English

16p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Maps; References; Tables

Highway design; Highway safety; Policy; Speed control humps; Speed limits; Traffic calming

London (England); New York (New York)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-03775

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:32AM