Built environment

Health Authorities and the Built Environment: Actions to Influence Public Policies

The mandate of the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) is to increase the expertise of public health actors across Canada in healthy public policy through the development, sharing and use of knowledge. Health authorities constitute a key group of stakeholders targeted by the knowledge translation, synthesis and exchange activities integral to the fulfillment of the Centre's mandate. It is within this context that the NCCHPP has developed various projects tied to public policies that inform the built environment and has been working with the Healthy Canada by Design coalition. The efforts of this coalition are focused on promoting certain public policies that can lead to the creation of healthier built environments – such as transportation and urban planning policies.

Under the direction of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, this coalition includes six health authorities (Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Island Health, Fraser Health, Pe…

Urban Traffic Calming and Active Transportation: Effects and Implications for Practice

This summary is the fourth in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help explain and predict the effects of such strategies on active transportation (cycling, walking, etc.). Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public health.

Urban Traffic Calming and Air Quality: Effects and Implications for Practice

This summary is the second in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help to explain and predict the effects of calming interventions on air pollution produced by traffic. Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public health actors.

 

Urban Traffic Calming and Environmental Noise: Effects and Implications for Practice

This summary is the third in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help explain and predict the effects of such strategies on traffic noise. Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public health.

Urban Traffic Calming and Health

This literature review examines the effects of traffic calming in urban environments on four health determinants, namely:

 

  • The number and severity of road collisions,
  • Air quality,
  • Environmental noise, and
  • Physical activity associated with active transportation.

Traffic calming is a manner of intervening in the built environment that appears to offer significant potential as a way to improve population health, and the evaluative literature is sufficiently abundant to require a literature review. This review will also facilitate comparison of the two approaches to traffic calming: the black-spots approach and the area-wide approach.

Urban Traffic Calming: Summary Tables of Evaluative Studies

The tables below constitute a synthesis of the evaluations of traffic-calming interventions included in our literature review, including our comments.a Readers will find here a synthesis of each study (research questions, methodology, results), along with a column containing remarks about the conceptual validity, the internal validity and/or the reliability of each one. Although they are presented individually, the studies are grouped into three broad intervention categories: those evaluating individual traffic-calming measures (when these are not explicitly identified as part of an area-wide intervention); those evaluating a series of measures installed on a single road; and those evaluating a series of measures in a geographic area including more than one road (whether they were planned to function in a systemic manner on a road network or were installed without an explicitly identified intervention logic).

The studies are thus presented with the aim of achieving one gener…

Traffic-calming Measures

This glossary was developed in conjunction with the document “Urban Traffic Calming and Health: A Literature Review” for the purpose of describing and illustrating the various trafficcalming measures referred to in the review.

This glossary identifies and describes trafficcalming measures, and offers the terms side by side in French and English. It may be of general interest to those seeking a simple way to orient themselves with respect to the numerous existing calming measures or those who are more generally interested in policies related to transportation or mobility. For these reasons, the NCCHPP is publishing the Glossary as a separate document as well as an appendix to the literature review.

As mentioned in the literature review, some of the devices described below are not considered by everyone to belong to the category of what are generally referred to as “traffic-calming measures.” However, they are included in this glossary because some of the studies consu…

Urban Traffic Calming and Road Safety: Effects and Implications for Practice

This summary is the first in a series of five short documents based on a literature review published in 2011. In what follows, we first present the mechanisms of action underlying traffic-calming strategies, as these mechanisms help to explain and predict the effects of calming interventions on the number and severity of collisions. Next, we summarize the results of studies having evaluated two approaches to traffic calming. Lastly, we consider the implications of such results for public health actors.

Traffic Calming: Political Dimensions

As we use it, the concept of traffic calming refers to engineering measures (speed humps, curb extensions, etc.) and implementation strategies (30-km/h zones, meeting zones, etc.) that reduce speeds and/or motorized traffic volumes on existing public roadways. The many intervention strategies used by public authorities can be classified into two categories. One can be designated the black-spots approach, and the other the area-wide approach. Following our definition, the strategies based on the black-spots approach are those in which measures are implemented at specific and isolated targeted spots within the road network (an intersection or on a street, for example). In strategies based on the area-wide approach, measures are deployed in an integrated manner in a zone made up of more than one street.

The purpose of this document is to provide public health authorities in Canada with a few political reference points on two approaches so that they may better assess, if they de…

Traffic Calming: An Equivocal Concept

The work on traffic calming that we are publishing includes two series of documents and an evolving index of traffic-calming measures and strategies, also to be posted on a section of our website. The first series of documents allows us to present the results of our review of the literature on the effects of traffic calming on certain population health determinants. The second series is intended to provide some conceptual background and policy references.

In this document, belonging to the second series, we introduce the concept of traffic calming by examining the various historical perspectives that have been proposed of interventions designated by this concept.

First, the expressions chosen for the translation into English and French of the concept originating from the German “verkehrsberuhigung” will be presented. Then, an overview of some of the ways it has evolved historically will allow for a description of the diverse goals, objectives and means associated wit…