The ways we organize the movement of goods and people have multiple, complex and uneven effects on the health of populations. Despite its advantages, the increase in volumes of individual motorized travel has worrisome effects on determinants of health such as collisions, injuries and deaths, air quality, environmental noise and physical activity related to active transportation.
Multiple factors affect the speed of motor traffic; not all require expensive infrastructure.
Photo: flickr.com / Payton Chung |
Traffic calming offers a way to intervene on the built environment that has significant potential to mitigate these adverse effects and improve the health of exposed populations.
Although the exact delimitation of this concept remains unclear in the literature and in practice, we can say that traffic calming refers to engineering measures and implementation strategies that aim to reduce speeds and/or motorized traffic volumes. |
In the coming months, the NCCHPP will release different resources related to traffic calming. We will first publish two sets of documents.
The first set is designed to provide conceptual and political reference points to public health authorities and not-for-profit organizations seeking to influence transportation policies.
The second set of documents presents the results of a literature review on the effects of traffic calming on four determinants of population health, the number and severity of road collisions, air quality, environmental noise and physical activity related to active transportation.
We will also post an evolving register of traffic calming measures, strategies and approaches on our website.
If you wish to be informed of the release of NCCHPP's resources in traffic calming, click here to go to our subscriptions page, and then check the box for “Traffic Calming”.
1) Introductory documents
Traffic Calming: An Equivocal Concept
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Traffic Calming: Political Dimensions
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2) Literature review and associated documents
Urban Traffic Calming and Health: A Literature Review
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Glossary of Traffic-calming Measures
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Urban Traffic Calming: Summary Tables of Evaluative Studies
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Urban Traffic Calming and Road Safety: Effects and Implications for Practice
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Urban Traffic Calming and Air Quality: Effects and Implications for Practice
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Urban Traffic Calming and Environmental Noise: Effects and Implications for Practice
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