Abstract Manager

Following TAC's Guide to Traffic Calming (Version 1), speed humps are not recommended for use on streets with grades of more than 8%. However, many municipalities have local streets with grades in excess of 8% and receive many citizen requests for slowing vehicles on these streets; most particularly when adjacent land uses include schools, parks, community centres, and/or senior centres.

With the resurgence of traffic calming on local streets in Vancouver post-pandemic, City of Vancouver staff were challenged to find a traffic calming measure that would reduce vehicle speeds on local streets when grades were greater than 8%.

Staff conducted a review of other cities and found that Seattle, Washington, used roadway narrowing (chicanes) on local streets with grades. Staff determined to explore piloting a quick-build roadway narrowing on 2900 E Georgia Street. This block was 11m wide and had a grade above 8%. 

City staff worked closely with emergency services staff to determine the width required to support their largest vehicle movements through sharing design information at regular meetings, as well as conducting a road test. The road test consisted of using construction pylons to demarcate the roadway narrowing dimensions. Emergency services staff drove the largest vehicle through the mock-up. In this way, both City staff and emergency services staff felt confident of the design dimensions before build-out. 

In order to maintain as much parking as possible on the street, staff investigated options for boulevard extensions that would allow parking adjacent to the roadway narrowing. However, an additional consideration of allowing parking next to the roadway narrowing was that passengers alighting from vehicles would be able to access the sidewalk no matter their ability.

Prior to this project, City of Vancouver staff had explored bus stop bulges at various locations. These bus stop bulges were also built with interim materials (wood and asphalt). However, the cost and maintenance of these locations showed lessons learned that would be prohibitive for the quick-build roadway narrowing on 2900 E Georgia Street. Similarly, ZICLA was explored, but cost prohibitive to the project budget. Nevertheless, staff took these lessons learned and worked with the in-house manufacturing department to procure platforms that were based on the maintenance lessons learned.

The quick-build roadway narrowing was installed on 2900 E Georgia Street in September 2024. The City is collecting data and feedback on the design throughout 2025.