Traffic Gardens Through Time: 90 Years of evolution
The very first Safety Town was installed in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1937 by Patrol Officer Frend Boals, introducing the concept of traffic gardens to the United States. Inspired by the book Safety Town Stories, Boals designed a miniature streetscape within a local park, complete with scaled-down roads, plus portable stop signs, working traffic signals, and small buildings. This innovative, child-sized learning environment quickly gaining national attention and recognition from federal transportation officials and the AAA.
A similar concept emerged slightly earlier in the UK, where portable kits for teaching road safety appeared in school playgrounds during the mid-1930s. Shortly after Ohio’s Safety Town opened, Model Traffic Area No. 1 debuted in Tottenham, a sophisticated, six-acre installation launched by the Minister for Transport. Both initiatives independently addressed growing child safety concerns by creating miniature street networks for interactive learning. Tottenham’s site attracted thousands before closing during WWII, while Ohio’s simpler, painted model and companion safety town programs spread through the Midwest.
In 1964, the Ohio-based National Safety Town Center formalized program guidelines, supporting growth from 20 safety town programs to 700 by 1983. At its peak, the Center reported 3,500 programs worldwide. Some 1970s installations and programs, like Portsmouth Safety Town and Eisenhower Park Safety Town remain active today.
In 2010, the concept of deploying scaled-down street networks reemerged as "traffic gardens," influenced by a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) report highlighting Swiss examples without mentioning existing U.S. safety town models. This report, the first federal use of "traffic garden," inspired renewed interest and adoption among transportation professionals and bike-pedestrian advocates. A 2011 StreetFilms video on Utrecht’s traffic garden in the Netherlands proved very popular among this new audience also.
Subsequently, traffic gardens started to take off nationwide, inspired most notably by Seattle’s White Center Traffic Garden installed in 2015. With the dissolution of the National Safety Town Center, new traffic gardens aligned with biking groups and school biking initiatives. Variations of the name like "traffic playgrounds" and "bike gardens" emerged regionally.
Today's new traffic gardens primarily use colorful line-striping and pavement markings rather than miniature asphalt roads. Since 2021, cities have developed installation guides, and professional-grade stencils simplify setup. School districts have been increasingly adopting these facilities, with 12 in DC, nine in Seattle, and all 85 Milwaukee elementary schools. Currently, the U.S. hosts over 331 traffic gardens and there are more than 1,800 globally. Despite evolving designs and terminology, the core concept remains unchanged: creating safe, interactive miniature worlds that provide comfortable spaces for skill-building and safety education through play, practice and lessons.
Discover Traffic Gardens visited Mansfield site in 2018.
We visited Model Traffic Garden No. 1 in 2023.
Check out Vintage Newsreels and Newspaper Articles!
The Traffic School! Germany (1931)
Silent movie footage of schoolgirls attending a traffic safety class in 1931 Germany. This is the earliest film that we have found of students being taught using traffic models, although in this case, it is a tabletop model. The girls are then tested to assess their understanding and ensure the success of their traffic safety training.
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Earliest Footage of Permanent Facility, Essex, U.K. (1937)
This is the earliest footage we have found of a traffic garden facility anywhere in the world. The clip showcases students at the Brentwood, Training School engaging in hands-on learning within a miniature traffic system created on the school's pathways and driveway. In the 1930s, these residential schools were institutions designed primarily for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including orphans, children in care, and those from impoverished families. The curriculum typically included basic education, vocational training, and life skills, and many schools had large outdoor spaces for physical activity. Note also that 'Safety First' was the 'Vision Zero' of it's day.
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Earliest Footage of a Mobile Installation, Leeds, U.K. (1936)
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This short segment from a 1936 Pathé film reel showcases a road safety class held in the playground of Beckett Street School in Leeds, Yorkshire, U.K. Children in pedal cars, bicycles, and tricycles navigate a marked road area, stopping at zebra crossings to let little girls with toy prams pass. The scene features electrically controlled traffic lights and Belisha beacons, all under the supervision of a female teacher. All of the elements are portable and it appears that the markings are temporary.
Launch of Model Traffic Area No. 1, London, U.K. (1938)
Watch this fascinating newsreel showcasing the opening ceremony for Model Traffic Area No. 1 at Lordship Recreation Ground in Tottenham, London! The Transport Minister of the time, joined by dignitaries, delivers a speech explaining the initiative's purpose and then we see lots of children happily using the facility. While the language may feel old-fashioned today, many of the ideas remain remarkably relevant today. We have paid a visit to this site and it continues to be in operation today although not at the levels when it was first opened.
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Portable Installation for Safety Program, West Ham, U.K. (1946)
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This vintage newsreel features a costumed Metropolitan Policeman, "Safety Sam," teaching road safety to young teenage girls on a school playground in West Ham, London. This model stands out for its use of full-scale vehicles and adults acting out unsafe road behaviors, creating a scenario more akin to an outdoor play. The footage captures some of the girls applying these lessons by navigating a the portable street course designed to simulate real streets.
Educational Video featuring Jimmy Stewart,
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. (1950s)
In 1954, Chevrolet dealers released "Tomorrow's Drivers," a documentary narrated by James Stewart that was reportedly very popular at the time. The film highlights an innovative educational program at Garfield Elementary School in Arizona, where young students operated pedal-powered Chevrolet cars on a miniature road course. By immersing students in a scaled-down city environment on their school playground, the initiative aimed to prepare them for future responsibilities as drivers and pedestrians.
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Permanent Model Roadway in Action, Eastcote, U.K. (1954)
A 1954 newsreel captures children learning road safety at a model traffic area. Children first study the road signs at a blackboard before practicing on a miniature roadway with traffic lights, zebra crossings, and realistic signs. The footage then shows the young cyclists stopping for pedestrians, heeding "Halt Major Road Ahead" signs, and following "Slow" markings.
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The Verkehrsgärten in Dusseldorf, Germany (1958)
By the mid-20th century, Germany had introduced Verkehrsgärten—traffic gardens designed for hands-on road safety education. In 1958, a suburb of Düsseldorf unveiled an impressive facility where students used pedal cars and bicycles on a set of miniature streets. Some students even had the opportunity to drive a small tram! The layout featured traffic signals, signs, and intersections, with two police officers - one providing instructions via loudspeaker and the other correcting mistakes on-site, a common practice seen in many of these historical recordings.
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The Traffic Wars, Japan (1960s)
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Traffic parks were developed as a hands-on educational solution to Japan's "Traffic War" - a term used to describe the surge in traffic fatalities due to the rapid increase in automobile usage.The 1960s and early 1970s saw the peak of traffic park development, following guidelines set by the Ministry of Construction. These parks were meant to provide children with a safe, controlled environment to learn road safety, using miniature streets, traffic signals, go-karts, and bicycles. By 1970, 191 traffic parks were officially recorded, although the actual number may have been higher.
Children's Safety Village in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (1965)
This footage captures children at play in the Children's Safety Village in Hamilton, Canada, during the 1950s. The facility provided a dedicated space for children to learn about traffic safety allowing young learners to navigate the space using pedal cars while receiving guidance from both policemen and policewomen. Notably, this traffic safety village was located at a newly built shopping mall, integrating public education with commercial and community spaces - an approach that aligned with the mid-century push for modern urban planning and suburban development.
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Clontarf Traffic School, Dublin, Ireland (1970s)
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The Clontarf Traffic School was a cherished destination for Dublin schoolchildren throughout the 1970s and '80s, providing a hands-on introduction to road safety. Our director, Fionnuala, is a proud alumna of this beloved program. While the original traffic school is no longer in operation, its legacy lives on, inspiring modern Learn-2-Cycle initiatives in Dublin. The traffic garden featured a network of miniature streets where students took turns navigating as cyclists, pedestrians, and pedal car drivers.
Dublin Kids talking about Clontarf Traffic School (1981)
The 1981 TV footage of the Clontarf Traffic School is particularly notable for its voice-over narration, where a Garda explains the school's operation while viewers see children actively using the facility just as he describes. The segment also features fantastic interviews with local Dublin schoolboys. In the final shot, the camera pulls back to reveal the full scale of the facility in action, with the school boys navigating the miniature roads in pedal cars, on bicycles, and as pedestrians.
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National Safety Town Center (1986)
National Safety Town programs gained widespread popularity in the United States by the 1980s. This video showcases a Safety Town in action and captures the program’s immersive approach, highlighting how children learned real-world traffic rules in a controlled, engaging setting.
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Radio Piece on History of Kew Traffic School, Melbourne, Australia
The iconic Kew Traffic School has been a cherished part of Melbourne’s eastern suburbs since it opened in 1957. Designed to replicate real road conditions, this miniature traffic park has played a vital role in education for generations—and continues to do so today. This radio segment captures the fond memories of Melburnians who learned the rules of the road at Kew, from riding pedal cars to earning the coveted Best Pedestrian award.
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Popular StreetFilms Story about Utrecht Traffic Garden (2012)
In 2012, StreetFilms released a widely viewed video about Utrecht’s traffic garden in the Netherlands, reintroducing the concept of these small-scale streetscapes to a broader U.S. audience. Showcasing how children in a dedicated, immersive space, the video captured the imagination of many in the transportation planning world sparking renewed interest in their potential for U.S. communities.
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The 1930s Book that Launched the first U.S. Installation, Safety Town Stories
In 1930, an Ohio-based children’s writer named Mildred Roberts wrote a book called Safety Town Stories, intended to help children navigate the new and dangerous world of automobiles. The idea of creating a Safety Town was mentioned a year later in the 1931 book Safety Programs and Activities for Elementary and Junior High Schools. By 1937, a Mansfeld, Ohio Police officer named Frend Boals was inspired to take the lessons found in Roberts’ book and put them into practice. Boals created the first full-scale "Safety Town" in which children could role-play various traffic scenarios from the book. We have an original 1930 copy of the book, inscribed by the author, that we bring along to traffic garden launches and ribbon-cuttings!
Essay about the Wonderful Worlds of Traffic Gardens
Our pal Ian McMurray of Kittleson & Associates wrote an excellent article exploring the history of children's fascination with miniature worlds and its connection to the experiential learning fostered in traffic gardens. You can read it here on Kittleson.com.
National Safety
Town Center
In 1937 Mansfield Ohio, a concept was born amongst local police and community. Dorothy Chlad, a nursery school teacher at the time, jumped into expanding the idea of a
Safety Town. Something that a Mansfield policeman, Frend Boals, had initiated.
Through her efforts the idea grew into the local communities and beyond. Dorothy then created the National Safety Town Center. Below you can see some of the resources that
Dorothy Chlad created.
Why Explore the Origins of Traffic Gardens?
Understanding the history of traffic gardens and model-based learning helps us appreciate their long-standing role in introducing children and new learners to our built world and systems. By tracing their origins, we can see how these innovative spaces evolved across different countries and time periods, shaping the way we educate today. It also reinforces the continued relevance of traffic gardens as a hands-on, experiential tool - one that remains as effective today as it was nearly a century ago.
By sharing this history, we aim to highlight the global impact of traffic gardens over the past century, advocate for their role in modern education, and inspire researchers, historians and others to explore this approach to mobility learning and practice.