I know many of you have been wanting me to get back to a controversial street topic and here it is. I am not sure you can get more contentious (or nerdy) than traffic calming. People hold very strong views on traffic calming and our seeming obsession with speed humps in particular, as a solution is something I feel very strongly about. I will be honest, I hate speed humps. They are a lazy, cheap solution in the same way that creating really wide streets for cars was a lazy solution to creating a transportation network in the past. I will agree that there are times when, due to our poor planning of the past, that speed hump makes the most sense, especially financially. There are other solutions to traffic calming though, and I want to introduce you to my favourite for creating low speed streets, the chicane.

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What is a Traffic Chicane?

A traffic chicane is where you take a roadway and create alternating curb bulbs, extensions or curves, making it so vehicle drivers feel that the roadway is more cramped for them and also that they have to navigate it back and forth. There are extreme versions of this type of slow street where a car can only move at a snails pace or ones where it can slow cars down just to reasonable speed for a city street. The City of Victoria website includes traffic chicanes as the second to last item on their traffic calming page (of course speed humps are at the top…)

Here are some examples from the web of traffic chicanes:

Basic design with limited benefit

Beautiful One-Way Design with Additional Pedestrian Spaces

One-Way Chicane with Basic Bike Lane

Two-Way Chicane with Limited Improvements

Two-Way Chicane with More Improvements Note: SFBetterstreets.org seems to have removed this jpeg. It was from the page linked below which is still active but with no photos: https://sfbetterstreets.org/find-project-types/pedestrian-safety-and-traffic-calming/traffic-calming-overview/chicanes/index.html

The Vancouver Street Bikeway has elements of a chicane in it.

The best example we have of a functioning traffic chicane is along Mason Street between Cook Street and Vancouver Street. Despite having on the one end a busy street and at the other the parking entrance for a major destination store, the street is almost always quiet and cars move along it at safe pace. Walking along this part of Mason Street is relaxing and a large part of that comes from the traffic calming along here. I will say I think that more could have been done with the traffic bulbs but overall for a short piece of infrastructure, it works well. Too bad it was not replicated in the 900 block of Mason…

Why Don’t I Like Speed Humps?

There are a few reasons actually. First, I think that they are simply ugly. If you see a roadway as a public space rather than a car space, a speed hump adds no value aesthetically. In contrast, the chicane opens up an empty canvas of opportunity with each curve.

For my second reason, it could be just the ones I see around here, but because they are a simple solution, speed humps seem to not encourage broader thinking about the spaces they are placed. The speed hump is added and then we can walk away thinking we have somehow created a better street, but we haven’t. It may make them slightly safer near the actual speed hump and may slightly decrease traffic, but they don’t necessarily actually slow down traffic that much. The streets with speed humps are still broad strips of asphalt; ugly and unimaginative.

As I live near the new speed humps along Haultain Street, I see them get used a lot and what happens is a car slows down to cross the speed hump (sometimes… I have seen quite a few cars bottom out on them too) and then as soon as they are across they speed up till they get to the next one. While traffic has reduced along the street considerably, it has very little to do with the speed humps and instead the lack of through traffic access that used to be there. When I look at Haultain and think of what could have been if the road had been narrowed and chicanes added instead, it makes me sad. That said, the lowly speed hump has two things going for them: They are cheap and some would argue, easier for emergency vehicles to transit.

While I could go on, speed humps are also particularly annoying to me as a cyclist, especially when I am pulling a trailer. This could be easily rectified with some cycle gaps in them, but that would require more work and speed humps are all about doing as little as possible.

Traffic chicanes are definitely more work, more expensive and require lots more planning, but the outcome has the opportunity to be pretty amazing. The spaces taken back from the roadway can be made into bench spots, places for public art, or just sidewalk extensions to give pedestrians more room. I also believe that a traffic chicane moves us closer to a real shared street, one that is accessible by car or bike and easily crossed by a pedestrian.

Okay now in the comments tell me why you disagree!