I participated in a Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio on Thursday. I highly recommend these sessions, and will have much more to say about them in the future. One of the presenters shared the diagram below to illustrate what could be done with an over-wide street in Carlsbad, California, the scene of a bicyclist fatality.

The diagram is from Better Town Toolkit, and I am quite pleased to find this website. It has design guidance for a variety of places, best practices, and case studies. “Our goal is to help you improve the prosperity, sustainability and quality of life in your community by providing you with the best practices for design and development in your area.” It is sponsored by Regional Plan Association in New York. I am unable to find this exact diagram on their website, but a similar one is L56.

Sacramento is full of over-wide streets. Of course pulling in the curb line and permanently narrowing the vehicle portion of the roadway is the best solution, but very expensive for moving drain inlets an re-pouring curbs. I’ve suggested using diagonal parking to narrow the travel way on slow, low-traffic streets: diagonal parking. The diagram shows another good solution for streets with attached sidewalks, no sidewalk buffer or planting strip. Plant trees in the parking lanes to narrow the roadway, retain parking on one side only, and make a two-way street with narrow lanes (9 foot?). The curb line does not necessarily need to be moved at all, and drain inlets may not need to be moved, so the project would be much less expensive than a street redesign.

There are many streets on which parking utilization is low, in fact, streets empty of parking have none of the traffic calming effect that parking can have. One lane of parking would be sufficient on many streets, and would disourage excess car ownership and long-term storage of cars on the street. Parking has benefits, but only if there is high utilization and turnover. Streets are not a place for long-term storage of private property.

Take a look at the website and let me know what your favorite diagram or page is.