The Problem With Designing Streets for Peak Hour Traffic

When engineers make decisions about streets, they tend to emphasize the "peak hour" -- the morning and evening rush when traffic is at its most intense. For the most part, city streets are still designed to move motor vehicles during this relatively short period of time, to the detriment of people outside of cars -- i.e. the people who live in the neighborhood.

Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn has been thinking over the implications of this approach to street design. He uses an example in Saint Paul, where the county is considering adding a turn lane to reduce rush hour delay:

Lindeke says that the tools engineers are using to evaluate the situation have some serious drawbacks:

Part of the problem is the lack of good data about how many people are walking or biking, or how the road widening might affect the quality of life of nearby residents, Lindeke says. To produce better results, he points to an idea from the National Association of City Transportation Officials, which recommends factoring in other modes besides driving and other times of day besides the peak hour when making decisions about the allocation of street space.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Vibrant Bay Area notes that wealthy suburbs are almost universally dependent on cities with lower average incomes, and that is especially true in Detroit. And Free Range Kids says President Obama is about to sign the "first federal free-range legislation" protecting parents' right to allow their child to walk to school.