Diagrams by Kriti Sharma
RIGHT-SIZE THE LANES!
Roadway design plays a huge role in how drivers behave. Historically, roadway design across the United States has prioritized the convenience of vehicle speeds at the expense of local quality of life. The result is communities with less safe, less economically vibrant, and less accessible streets today. One of the easiest steps to remedying unruly drivers and unproductive streets is by right-sizing driving lanes.
As a general rule of thumb, lanes of 12 feet or wider are excessive, leaving The average width of passenger vehicles in the US ranges up to 80 inches (6.7 feet), (yes, this even includes the now ubiquitous Ford F150). While lane widths need to accommodate vehicles, they are often double the width of cars, frequently exceeding 13 feet in our urban areas.
Wider lanes often mean wider streets with narrower sidewalks and longer crossing distances for people walking, more asphalt with higher maintenance costs, and less space for green infrastructure, bicycling infrastructure, and parking.
Streetscapes must be designed with all of their potential users in mind, and lane widths are no exception to this prerogative. The current method just doesn’t work.
13-FOOT LANES ARE
A WASTE OF SPACE
This diagram illustrates a 60’ wide street designed with three travel lanes and two parking lanes. These driving lanes are drastically oversized, which encourages driving at higher speeds and creates hazardous conditions for people walking. In this example (pulled from an actual street in Albany) the expansive lanes are also a poor use of valuable space along an important urban corridor. Streets with excess lane width exist throughout our communities and right-sizing them provides opportunities for improved safety, revitalization, and resiliency.
SMALL ADJUSTMENT
= BIG IMPACT
By defining parking and resizing travel lanes, 15’ of underutilized roadway width can be used to create a more walkable corridor. This diagram shows the 15’ of excess width as 7.5’ on each side of the street.
REDUCE TRAFFIC LANES TO MAKE
WAY FOR MORE INFRASTRUCTURE
Eliminating wide lanes creates opportunities for better streets. Narrowing these lanes to an appropriate width creates 15’ of available space that can be used for infrastructure like bike lanes and greenery. Here we reallocated this excess space to create 5’ wide bike lanes in each direction. With 4’ of excess width still remaining, a median can also be introduced and provide greenery in the area. The reconfiguration of wide lanes can easily allow for more people-centered street design.
Our roads need to be striped with narrower lanes. Our communities should consider 11’ to be the maximum lane width in almost every circumstance.
Further, every single foot allocated for vehicle travel space on an urban roadway is a foot that a pedestrian must cross in the searing summer heat, biting winter cold, pouring rain, pelting hail, and all other conditions that pertain to Upstate New York’s climate. Every single foot allocated for vehicle travel space is also a foot taken away from a potential bicycle lane, pushing bikes and other micro-mobility vehicles onto sidewalks, which can cause hazards to pedestrians.
There are multiple ways by which narrower lanes improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. The first is that since narrower lanes generally slow vehicles down, and slower vehicles give both drivers and other road users more time to process and react to danger, it is less likely for anyone involved to be seriously injured or killed in a crash.
On top of that, narrower lanes means a shorter right-of-way that pedestrians must traverse while crossing the street, decreasing the risk of being harmed in an intersection. Even further, narrower vehicle travel lanes frees up more space in the roadway for new sidewalks, median crossing refuges, lighting, protected bicycle infrastructure, and even dedicated bus lanes.
With more space, the possibilities to make our streets more vibrant are endless!
ADDITIONAL READING
Read more about how right-sized lanes foster an environment and opportunities that make for cleaner, quieter & ultimately safer cities.
How Narrower Traffic Lanes Could Help Reduce Crashes
Narrower streets with room for bike lanes and sidewalks could pay dividends for health and safety.
In a win for the climate, urban speed limits are dropping
Slower traffic speeds protect pedestrians and cyclists, helping more people access climate-friendly transportation.
The Curative Power of Quieter Cities
As the negative effects of noise pollution become increasingly clear, communities are working together to turn down the volume.