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Reid Ewing: Salt Lake City needs some traffic-calming measures

On New Year’s Day, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that three homeless men were struck and killed trying to cross streets near South Salt Lake City’s new homeless shelter. Various pedestrian safety improvements were mentioned in the article, such as lowering speed limits, painting crosswalks and giving jaywalking tickets.

One pedestrian safety countermeasure, which has proven effective elsewhere, wasn’t mentioned in the article: traffic calming. That is the installation of engineering measures that force traffic to slow down as it goes around traffic circles, goes over raised intersections or squeezes between a center line and curb extensions.