Figure 1: Temporary Traffic Calming Curbs (source: City of Calgary)

Traffic calming curbs are precast reinforced concrete slabs that can be used to construct traffic calming features such as curb extensions, traffic circle centre islands, and chicanes. They can also be used to construct active transportation facilities such as protected bicycle lanes. The City of Calgary won the Transportation Association of Canada’s 2019 Road Safety Engineering award for the development of traffic calming curbs.

Because traffic calming curbs do not interfere with roadway drainage, they can be installed quickly without a lengthy design process.

The weight of each curb module is sufficient to hold them in place in most cases. Typically, they can be installed without anchoring them to the pavement and can be left in place year-round. Because of this, they typically do little to no damage to the underlying pavement.

As a pilot project, the City of Sarnia recently installed several traffic calming curbs using the City of Calgary design.

Administration is currently evaluating the feasibility of using traffic calming curbs on a pilot basis to create “pop-up” protected bicycle lanes on road diet projects.

City of Toronto

Under the former municipality of North York, now amalgamated into the current City of Toronto, locations identified for permanent traffic calming would receive temporary traffic calming for a 6-month trial period. At the end of this period, residents would be surveyed by questionnaire to determine resident opinion on the measures. Depending on resident support, either the traffic calming measures would be removed or permanent measures would be installed.