In late 2022, TPB staff interviewed Andrea Lasker, Vision Zero Prince George’s County Vision Zero Program Manager, and Sam Murrey, Arlington County Transportation Analyst, to learn about their experience coordinating on a joint Regional Roadway Safety Program (RRSP) jurisdictional application “Planting Seeds for Regional Roadway Safety, One Traffic Garden at a Time.”
The project received funding through RRSP in December 2021 and has moved forward with a focus on developing proposed traffic garden guidance and a traffic garden design template.
What are traffic gardens?
As a starting point to taking a closer look at this collaboration, an initial question to be answered is What is a traffic garden? Traffic gardens are essentially miniature towns with streets, signs, roadways, and traffic rules. The gardens are a place for children to practice their cycling and transportation awareness skills. Kids use traffic gardens to learn how to safely cycle, walk, or scoot in an environment with cars, buses, and other cyclists. Many adults may be familiar with a similar concept—Safety Towns—which were established and became popular in the early to mid-20th century in response to increasing conflicts between pedestrians and motorists and resulting injuries (Mobility Lab).
Planning for traffic gardens in Arlington and Prince George’s counties
To better understand how the project has progressed, TPB staff asked about project origins, the status and future of traffic gardens in each county, and how traffic gardens engage youth.
Q. The Regional Roadway Safety Program application of Arlington County and Prince George’s County is unique in that jurisdictions in two states joined together to propose the traffic garden guidance and design template work. How did the idea for collaborating on the RRSP application come about?
According to Andrea Lasker, the counties have an established relationship through other regional efforts such as the Vision Zero regional workgroup that brings together the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, and Prince George’s County to share resources and to discuss potential collaboration.
Sam Murrey noted that there has been a flurry of traffic garden activity in the TPB region in recent years, which is creating momentum; however, it has been difficult to secure funding to build permanent traffic gardens in the counties. At the same time, Prince George’s County was looking to expand their capacity to install traffic gardens. The collaboration is an opportunity to recognize the potential for traffic garden projects to achieve systematic regional goals over the short and long term.
Q. What is the focus of the project and plans for establishing new traffic gardens? Do Arlington County and Prince George’s County plan to develop permanent traffic gardens, temporary, or both?
Murrey commented that the project began with conducting an extensive interview process to gather input locally and nationally from professionals who have traffic garden experience. From this information, a first draft of traffic garden project guidance was developed with a second step of developing traffic garden templates.
Using the guidance, the counties can work with community institutions and partners such as the schools or park systems to use existing resources to facilitate the installation of traffic gardens. The guidance serves as a roadmap for prospective partners on how to envision and install a traffic garden, as well as providing guidance on emerging traffic garden practices. The guidance could result in permanent or temporary traffic gardens.
Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation plans to install permanent traffic gardens. Lasker said that the county continues to collaborate with schools, municipalities in the county, Prince George’s County police, and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) on garden locations and programming. Pop-up gardens have been a way to introduce people to the traffic garden concept, and the county now has a complete pop-up traffic garden kit that the department will make available.
Q. The “Planting Seeds for Regional Roadway Safety” project emphasizes engaging youth early and directly to understand transportation safety and the region’s transportation vision. Do you know to what extent transportation or traffic safety is included as part of classroom lessons that then extend to the traffic gardens?
Murrey commented that “Fostering safety and deeper knowledge of how street interactions work is integral to the purpose of traffic gardens. They give users practice interpreting and developing intuitive understanding of the signs, markings, and procedures we use to get around.”
The RRSP project provides guidance for adding or enhancing transportation curriculum in the lessons associated with traffic gardens. Guidance will offer suggestions on involving children in discussions of the design, engineering, and upkeep of traffic gardens, data collection, and ongoing STEM programming to accompany the traffic garden.
Prince George’s County works with the M-NCPPC Park Rangers to conduct bicycle rodeos with children to teach bicycle and road safety rules. The county also plans to conduct workshops with children at community center aftercare programs.
Wrapping up the interviews, TPB staff asked about takeaways or observations from Arlington County and Prince George’s County staff about their experience with the TPB Regional Roadway Safety Program:
From Prince George’s perspective, Lasker offered that RRSP is “an excellent way to start a meaningful and impactful safety project.” Being able to collaborate across the region means an opportunity to learn from other jurisdictions that are completing their own projects.
Murrey said that the RRSP project has also been a way to address inequities and foster community agency resulting in the ability to “shape a project with direct application to the community.”
Regional Roadway Safety Program accepting applications through March 3, 2023.
TPB’s RRSP program and the TPB Transportation Land-Use Connections Program are both accepting applications through March 3, 2023. The programs offer short-term consultant services, and the selected project will receive between $30,000 and $80,000 in assistance for planning or design. Learn more.
Read more
County getting $35,000 for ‘traffic gardens’ to teach kids about road safety (ARLnow)
An Inside Look at Prince George’s County’s First Traffic Garden
(Prince George's County Government)
Traffic Gardens Teach Safety and Engineering to Kids as Biking Surges
(Mobility Lab)