Engineering & Traffic Calming Measures

Engineering & Traffic Calming Measures

The City of Bowie’s streets were designed with safe, efficient traffic flow in mind. However, sometimes it may be necessary to supplement the basic design features on City streets to address traffic or speeding concerns in your neighborhoods. 

After reviewing policies by many jurisdictions, the City of Bowie adopted into policy the Prince George County Neighborhood Traffic Management Program as a guide for addressing traffic calming requests. The program references the process for requesting traffic calming measures in detail. Because of community-wide impacts, it is a multi-level process that begins with requesting neighborhood involvement by notifying and discussing your concerns with your community Homeowner Association (HOA); if the area of concern is not represented by an HOA contact your elected Councilperson. 

Process Explained

To begin the process of requesting any traffic calming measures, contact your HOA. If the area of concern is not represented by an HOA contact your elected Councilperson. Traffic calming measures have community-wide impacts; therefore, requests for traffic calming measures or traffic studies must be routed through the community HOA or City Councilperson elected to represent that community. These community concerns are then submitted by your HOA or Councilperson to the Department of Public Works. Traffic calming requests are managed by the Department of Public Works.

When DPW receives the request from the HOA and/or Councilperson, a detailed traffic study, evaluation, and engineering analysis will be performed. If this analysis supports traffic calming measures, many remedies could be requested ranging from community education to roadway restrictions; which may include signage, speed humps, turn restrictions, traffic circles, the narrowing of the street width with "chokers," and in rare events, full road closures. Prior to implementation, any requested traffic calming measures will require neighborhood approval (by agreement, petition, and/or public hearing) and any physical traffic calming measures will also require the support and approval of emergency services. Once community support and the traffic study are validated and approved, City staff will take actions to implement the required measures. In some cases, it may be as simple as education like the Speed Awareness Program. For physical devices, the Department of Public Works will install the approved traffic calming measures when funds become available. 

For more details about the policy and process view the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. For more information, please send an email or call Michael Schramm with the Department of Public Works at 301-809-2341.