Financing traffic-calming projects and programs is of key importance to many practitioners who work under increasingly strained local government budgets. This article presents findings from an extensive literature review and telephone survey of 63 local governments implementing traffic calming, and explains how these jurisdictions pay for their projects. The article reports that most jurisdictions rely on public funds, with a substantial minority requiring that residents, and sometimes developers, share the costs. City and county funding mostly comes from public works budgets, though traffic calming also has been funded from redevelopment programs and state traffic safety programs. Federal transportation funds were infrequently sought for traffic calming, principally because the application process was too costly and time consuming for small projects. Reliance on local financing tilts traffic-calming programs towards the cheapest installations, although in some situations a more costly device or strategy would be more satisfactory to the community at large. In addition, most localities have addressed traffic-calming needs on a spot-fix basis rather than through more costly, but potentially more effective, neighbourhood or district plans. (A)
Abstract