Ah! One of my big beefs with most "vertical" traffic-calming devices is that they seem designed to make people slow down below the posted speed. One that makes it possible to drive at the posted speed comfortably but not faster sounds like a win on that score. (My other big beef has to do with most being bicycle-unfriendly. I've got scars from a speed bump that the paint had worn off of that I encountered just before dusk in college.)
A couple blocks from here they installed another "lateral" traffic calming device a few months ago. A really tiny traffic circle. Yeah, it means people can't fly through the intersection any more. It also means trucks can't fit through there (which may have been the point -- I don't know which route trucks were taking to the Safeway down thataway). But I'm not sure fire engines fit through there either, and that's in the Arson Zone of SW Baltimore! Furthermore, it's made the intersection more dangerous, between the folks who just don't understand how to drive a traffic circle (including the bit about yielding to cars already in the circle), and the ones who want to turn left but don't notice that the tiny little thing is a circle and not just a funny island (thus going the wrong direction around it). I've had several near misses there since the circle went in; none at all before then.
Re: Traffic Calming
A couple blocks from here they installed another "lateral" traffic calming device a few months ago. A really tiny traffic circle. Yeah, it means people can't fly through the intersection any more. It also means trucks can't fit through there (which may have been the point -- I don't know which route trucks were taking to the Safeway down thataway). But I'm not sure fire engines fit through there either, and that's in the Arson Zone of SW Baltimore! Furthermore, it's made the intersection more dangerous, between the folks who just don't understand how to drive a traffic circle (including the bit about yielding to cars already in the circle), and the ones who want to turn left but don't notice that the tiny little thing is a circle and not just a funny island (thus going the wrong direction around it). I've had several near misses there since the circle went in; none at all before then.