Sustainable speed management in small rural communities

Small rural communities are often located along major state or county highways and as a result much of the traffic along their main thoroughfare is pass-through rather than local. Unfortunately, drivers passing through those communities often enter at high speeds and then maintain those speeds throughout creating a safety problem for the community. High speeds also discourage pedestrian activities, such as walking and bicycling, and discourage community interaction and vitality. Little guidance in the US is available about use of traffic calming in small rural communities since application of traffic calming has been done almost exclusively in larger urban areas. This paper discusses results of a project which evaluated eight different traffic calming treatments in five rural Iowa communities. Speeds were measured before and after installation of the treatments and the effectiveness of each treatment is discussed in this paper.