First Engineering Practice of Traffic Calming in Zhaitang Town in China

The concept, Traffic Calming, was introduced to China nearly more than 10 years ago. However, no engineering practice emerges for a long time. As a typical small rural town for tour in Beijing, Zhaitang Town requires more attention on the beautiful site and pedestrian safety. In 2008, Beijing Mentougou Highway Sub-bureau decided to change the reconstruction of Zhaitang Avenue into a pilot engineering project of traffic calming. According with the research results of the traffic features in Zhaitang, the combination of mainly physical measures that reduce the negative effects of motor vehicle use, alter driver behavior and improve conditions for non-motorized street users were applied, such as Speed Humps, Raised Crosswalks, Raised Intersections, Speed Cushions, Roundabouts, Chicanes, Neckdowns, Center Island Narrowings, Lateral Shifts, Median Diverters, Boom Barrier, Pedestrian Refuges, and so on. After a half year observation, the before-and-after data of the first traffic calming engineering project has been achieved. The principles, methods, techniques to set traffic calming facilities resulted from the project and the outcome evaluation are described in the paper.