Design

This research report is designed to stimulate new understanding and thinking that will lead to better streets for all Americans.

This report highlights the accomplishments of the Active Living by Design (ALbD) community partnerships during the five-year grant period. The information provided in this report was collected and tracked and reported utilizing the Progress Reporting System, a system developed by ALbD to document the progress made by the community partnerships during the grant program.

Context Sensitive Street Design (CSSD) is an approach to roadway planning, design and street operation, to meet regional transportation goals while enhancing neighborhoods and considering the adjacent uses of land. CSSD respects traditional street design objectives for safety, efficiency, capacity, and maintenance, while integrating community objectives and values relating to compatibility, livability, sense of place, urban design, cost and environmental impacts.

This booklet emphasizes the California Department of Transportation's (Caltrans) commitment to make state highways that also happen to be local main streets more livable. It is a manifestation of a process that is sweeping rapidly across America — and across California: Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS).

As part of the City of Charlotte's Smart Growth strategy, staff and consultants are developing comprehensive new urban street design guidelines to be applied to all new and modified streets. The design guidelines provide for all travel modes, while explicitly considering land use context, street function, and allocation among competing uses for often-limited right-of-way. The design guidelines offer direction on planning and designing for five street types and their intersections. As important as the "ideal" cross-sections developed, however, is the information provided to guide the tradeoff decisions inherent in street design, particularly in retrofit or modification situations. To that end, the guidelines include a step-by-step approach to their application.

These Urban Street Design Guidelines are intended to ensure that the best aspects of Charlotte's transportation network are re-cretaed as the city and its street network continue to evolve.

The Better Streets and Complete Streets Policies, passed in 2005 and 2006, call for City departments to work together to improve the functioning and aesthetic of our City's streets to meet social, recreational, transportation, and ecological goals. The Better Streets Plan (BSP), currently in draft form, provides a comprehensive set of street design guidelines to meet these goals. Recommendations of this report for improved project planning, design, and approval are intended to assist the City in implementing the BSP guidelines in a consistent and efficient manner.

Presentation showing different roads across the country that have gone on road diets

This document has been prepared to explain District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) approach to Context Sensitive Design. This purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for achieving excellence in planning and design of transportation projects.

This design guide provides information on constructing or modifying rural roads to cope with excessive speed and unsafe conditions.

This design guide provides information on creating narrow, streets in cities, villages, and hamlet centers with buildings close to sidewalks and other pedestrian-friendly features.

Designing accessible pedestrian signals, including key features, location, placement, policies

Pedestrians have a right to cross roads safely, and, therefore, planners and engineers have a professional responsibility to plan, design, and install safe crossing facilities." —Zegeer, et al., 2001 FHWA Crosswalk Study

• Definition
• Background
• Why Now?
• Design Elements (Width, Block Length, Sidewalks, Bicycle Lanes)
• What Does it All Mean?

Key Statistics And Facts:

1. For the first time in decades, surveys are showing a preference for expanding existing public transportation and building new bikeways and sidewalks over expanding existing highways and building new highways.
2. There are an estimated 35.3 billion walking trips nationwide every year in the U.S.
3. Walking is not just for recreation. Over 50% of all walking trips serve a functional purpose other than exercise and recreation.
4. Nearly a third of Americans do not drive, and the non-driving senior population will grow even larger in the near future with the aging Boomer generation.
5. 55% of Americans say they would rather drive less and walk more.
6. The top pedestrian complaint is simply that there are too few sidewalks.
7. The top bicyclist complaint is simply that there are too few bikeways.
8. While pedestrian and bicycle trips account for roughly 9% of all trips, 13% of all traffic related fatalities involve pedestrians and bicyclists.

Accommodating Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel: A Recommended Approach is a policy statement adopted by the United States Department of Transportation. USDOT hopes that public agencies, professional associations, advocacy groups, and others adopt this approach as a way of committing themselves to integrating bicycling and walking into the transportation mainstream.

A white paper that presents a thorough discussion on Complete Streets.

Context Zones—Every thoroughfare has an immediate physical context created by buildings and activities on adjacent properties and is also part of a broader context created by the surrounding neighborhood or district. While the elements of context can combine in almost infinite varieties, this report uses four context zones to define and categorize urban areas: suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4), urban center (C-5) and urban core (C-6).

Definition of Boulevard—In highly urban areas, boulevards can be "grand boulevards"— streets that help form a city's identity, a formal street designed to beautify and be a primary public space, a promenade. Boulevards can also serve as the urban core's spine, a major commercial corridor served by rail or bus transit having a primary mobility rolecollectors). The report was a joint effort between the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Definition of Avenue—In all contexts, but particularly in urban centers and cores, avenues make up the majority of thoroughfares comprising the network. Avenues are moderate-speed (30 to 35 mph) urban arterial or collector thoroughfares, generally shorter in length than boulevards. They are primary pedestrian and bicycle routes and may serve local transit. Avenues do not exceed four lanes. Generally, avenues are undivided but some feature a raised landscaped median.the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Creating Quality Main Streets—Main streets may be located in any context zone, but are most commonly found in suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4) and urban center (C-5) contexts. They are usually short segments of arterial or collector streets, often only a few blocks in length. They are within a grid or interconnected system of local streets serving the commercial center of town.

The publication provides a resource for practitioners working in the challenging practice of urban thoroughfare design. The principles are based on the evolving practice of context sensitive solutions (CSS), which integrates CSS principles into existing processes to facilitate informed decision-making that considers the needs, interests and constraints within a project. The publication describes:

• The importance of integrating the principles of CSS in urban roadway improvement projects,
• How CSS principles can be used in the transportation planning and project development processes, and
• Specific guidance on thoroughfare cross-section and intersection design.

Information contained in the report uses urban context to describe adjacent surroundings, then uses context to help select compatible thoroughfare types and design criteria. Context zones are used to categorize urban development density and intensity.

There are several design controls in the application of CSS principles that may be used differently than in the conventional design process. These controls include speed, location, design vehicle and functional classification.

The thoroughfare designer is challenged by the need to balance automobile mobility with the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, public space and urban design elements. While this report emphasizes CSS primarily in walkable, mixed-use residential and commercial urban areas, there are many urban areas with corridors or large districts that, by their nature, are low intensity and low density and do not provide the mix of uses, development patterns, or roadway networks conducive to walking.

Benefits of road diets for bicyclists and pedestrians?

• Provide space to add bicycle lanes
• Reduce crossing distance
• Eliminate or reduce "multiple threat" crash types
• Install crossing island to cross in 2 simple steps
• Reduce top end travel speeds
• Buffer sidewalk from travel lanes (parking or bike lane)
• Reclaim street space for "higher and better use" than moving peak hour traffic

This is a manual that describes how well-conceived traffic calming techniques and traditional neighborhood street design can accomodate the needs of emergency responders while creating safe and livable neighborhoods.

This chapter provides an overview of landscape planning and design, an integral part of transportation project development.

This chapter describes a variety of measures that can be used to lower vehicle speeds, and redirect traffic flows.

This resolution sets forth MTC's regional policy for accomodation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities during transportation project planning, design, funding and construction. Also included is pedestrian accomodation checklist.

Help Prevent Costly Delays and Retrofits Integrating the needs of all users—pedestrians, bicyclists, public transportation riders, motorists, older people, children, and people with disabilities—early in the life of a project minimizes costs associated with including facilities for these travelers. Complete streets policies ensure early multi-modal scoping, saving money by avoiding costly project delays. Without a policy, bicycle, pedestrian, and public transportation accommodations are often debated too late in the design process and are considered a disruption rather than necessary and beneficial project features.

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Complete streets policies direct transportation planners and engineers to consistently design with all users in mind. They have been adopted by a few states (OR, VA, SC), and a number of regions and cities. Places that adopt complete streets policies are making sure that their streets and roads work for drivers, transit riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists, as well as for older people, children, and people with disabilities.

This research has been undertaken to explore how sidewalks in New Jersey are constructed, maintained, reconstructed and financed. Sidewalks are a complicated issue due to multiple jurisdictions (local, county, and state), ambiguous responsibility for construction, reconstruction and maintenance, and contested liability. The research methodology included interviews with New Jersey planners and engineers at the state and local levels, a review of state and national guidelines, consultation with national professionals regarding practices outside New Jersey, and a legal analysis of sidewalk-related caselaw.

Roadway Design Objectives should include: a roadway environment that the user can: Interpret correctly and safely, Minimize their mistakes, Minimize impact of their mistakes

Provide guidance for the design of urban thoroughfares that is consistent with CSS principles

A framework for thoroughfare design:

1. Define context
2. Specify a complete palette of thoroughfare types
3. Define correspondence between context and thoroughfare type
4. Bring network into the process

The objective of this research was to investigate whether a relationship exists between street network characteristics and the choice of transportation modes selected in a neighborhood. In this study, we controlled for factors such as street characteristics, vehicle volumes, activity levels, income levels, proximity to limited access highways and to the downtown area. The results suggest that all three of the fundamental characteristics of a street network — street connectivity, street network density, and street patterns — are statistically significant in affecting the choice to drive, walk, bike, or take transit.

The paper examines the role of the street network in road safety outcomes. Data on more than 130,000 crashes occurring over nine years in 24 medium-sized California cities was input into a geographic information system (GIS) and evaluated against principal measures of street network density and connectivity at the Census Block Group level. Few studies have taken this more comprehensive approach of looking at the complete street network when it comes to safety, partly because until now this kind of holistic assessment would have been very difficult without recent advances in research tools such as GIS.

Through interviews with architects, planners, developers, and property managers of case study multifamily developments from Oregon, Arizona, Florida, and Massachusetts, this report focuses on the ways regulation, typical development practice, and design culture have propagated the typical disconnected and enclaved forms of suburban multifamily development. The report then proposes ways in which current planning, development, and design practices might shift in order to take advantage of this growing housing trend and create more livable, less congested, and multi-modal suburban communities.

The purpose of this guide on "How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan" is to present an overview and framework for state and local agencies to develop and implement a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan tailored to their specific problems and needs. Pedestrian Safety Action Plan is a plan developed by community stakeholders that is intended to improve pedestrian safety in the community. An objective of the guide is to help state and local officials know where to begin to address pedestrian safety issues. it is also intended to assist agencies in further enhancing their existing pedestrian safety programs and activites, including identifying safety problems and selecting optimal solutions.

This Citizen’s Guide is intended to show people who are passionate about creating better streets and walkable communities how they can influence highway professionals to address transportation in ways that place the most value on people and on places.

Concerns about livability are shared by every type of community, in inner cities, small towns and rural areas. This booklet explores how people in these communities are working in partnership with transportation agencies on locally-initiated projects and programs to create transportation systems that enhance places. While this booklet emphasizes the direct relationship between community reinvigoration and community-supportive transit facilities, case studies also demonstrate how the sympathetic design of roadways strengthens the connection between the two.

The case studies in this booklet offer a small sample of the ways in which highway projects can be designed with imagination, creativity, and collaboration to preserve and enhance the character and quality of a community without sacrificing transportation mobility and safety. While these few examples illustrate the art of the possible, throughout the country we see a new commitment to collaboration leading to more imaginatively designed facilities that enrich the communities in which they are located.

The Concept Plan process has provided an opportunity for Carmichael residents, property owners and County departments to participate in creating a design concept for Fair Oaks Boulevard. The Concept Plan illustrates Draft General Plan and Carmichael Community Plan draft policies, addresses the creation of a special planning area (SPA), and compares roadway design options. Specifically, the concept plan illustrates ways in which the community's desires for Fair Oaks Boulevard can be meshed with the roadway project proposed by the County of Sacramento.

This document outlines an approach to designing streets that are more "complete" in the sense of accomplishing all of the goals associated with the dominant form of public space in urban societies — our streets. The purpose of this booklet is threefold:

1. To provide suggested street standards for use when designing new streets and developments and when planning for future transit corridors
2. To provide guidance when dealing with a constrained right-of-way
3. To illustrate local examples of streets that work or do not work for various user groups

This document presents best practices for bicycle master plans for consideration and potential adoption by the Collaborative. These best practices were gleaned from bicycle plans recognized as being exemplary and from cities and/or counties that were recognized as being highly bikeable. First, the required elements of a bicycle master plan in the State of California are presented. Next, best practice bicycle master plan content is presented in the form of a typical bicycle plan outline. A special section addressing the current state-of-the-practice with regard to bicycle level of service measures is presented.

This section presents best practices pedestrian master plans for consideration and possible adoption by the Collaborative. Unlike, the bicycle master plan, there are no required pedestrian master plan elements in the State of California. The contents of a pedestrian master plan presented here represent best practice content gleaned from pedestrian plans of cities like Oakland and Portland that are recognized as being exemplary. The first section presents best practice content in a sample plan outline format, elaborating on key elements of the plan.

Universal Design (also called Inclusive Design or Accessible Design) refers to facility designs that accommodate the widest range of potential users, including people with mobility and visual disabilities and other special needs. Although Universal Design standards address the needs of people with disabilities, it is a comprehensive concept that can benefit all users. For example, people who are unusually short or tall, carrying packages or pushing a cart are not disabled, but their needs should be considered in facility design.

As this report will show, there still is a long way to go to repair the damage done to communities in the past, even as we begin to shift policies and design philosophy to build streets that are safer for pedestrians and motorists alike. However, there are a growing number of excellent models to build on and thousands of communities eager to move forward.

1. Transportation Action Plan
2. USDG Philosophy and Approach
3. Applying the Six-Step Plan/Design Process

Discussion centering around the potential implementation of "skinny streets" policies by the Delaware Department of Transportation.