Surrey's Traffic Calming Program
Traffic calming alters drivers' behaviour and driving patterns on neighbourhood streets by changing street alignment or width.
The City’s traffic calming program is designed to allow vehicles to travel at speeds that are appropriate based on the speed limit on local roads.
Read about speed humps in back lanes.
The City’s road network is organized in a hierarchy, according to their intended functions. Find the classification of your street, in Surrey's Road Classification Map (PDF. New window.).
- Highways and arterial roads are intended primarily for through and intra-regional traffic, and carry some of the higher traffic flows within the City.
- Collector roads typically allow circulation within town centres and large neighbourhood communities, and distribute traffic between local and arterial roads.
- Local roads provide connections within neighbourhood communities and access to local properties.
The main intent of arterial and collector roads is to provide efficient flow within Surrey’s transportation system and as such, they are often operated at higher speeds. Therefore, our traffic calming program only applies to local roads.
No engineering traffic calming measures on arterial and collector roads
Key reasons why traffic calming is not considered on arterial or collector roads:
- Increase in shortcutting vehicles – The inconvenience and discomfort of the traffic calming features on arterial and collector roads may encourage drivers to use alternatives and displace traffic to neighbouring local roads.
- Delay in emergency services response times – Arterial and collector roads are important routes for emergency services. Each measure increases emergency services response times and makes it difficult to achieve the response times required of them.
- Impact on transit services – Transit vehicles may travel on the same route many times a day. If a transit route has been traffic-calmed using vertical deflection devices, traversing these measures continually will cause increased wear to the transit vehicles and discomfort to the driver on a recurring basis. Also, passengers may feel discomfort and have an increased risk of falling.
Due to the increased presence of young children, we will consider traffic calming on collector roads fronting elementary schools.