One of my neighbors the next block down on our street is an urban planner by trade. He has a small kid, as do several of the people in the houses right around him, so he has organized with them to all park their cars on the street even though they all have driveways and garages.

As a result, the street becomes effectively much narrower through that block, which has a traffic-calming effect similar to curb bump-outs and chicanes.

Our street is not a particularly busy one, but it is one of the few streets in the neighborhood that goes all the way through to one of the connecting streets in town. Most of the people who live in the neighborhood drive relatively calmly, but we do get the occasional car speeding up or down the street at 30-40mph.

It makes me wonder what would happen if some large-ish concrete planters began appearing in the street on this block. We are a pretty small town and while the DPW does good work, they are stretched pretty thin just maintaining our 120-year old water and sewer infrastructure. I’m skeptical they would show up and remove something like that very quickly.