Understanding Traffic calming as a combination of measures to reduce the negative effects of vehicle use by altering driver behavior and improving road conditions for cyclists and pedestrians. The main goal is to increase a community’s quality of life and safety, but there are added environmental benefits—such as promoting pedestrian, cycle, and public transit use and lowering CO2 emissions—that can come from traffic calming as well.

Familiarizing Traffic calming measure aims to prevent high-speed, rushed driving by ‘calming’ motorists through increased sensory awareness. This is particularly important in areas, such as residential neighborhoods, with increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic, where high-speed, unfocused driving can be fatal.

Traffic calming is the use of physical road design and/or other measures to slow vehicles as they move through urban, commercial, and residential neighborhoods. Streets For People makes humans a priority over cars—a mental flip for many people who are used to the notion that streets are built for personal vehicles to travel on, and to do so as quickly as possible.