Complete Streets
Traffic Calming
Sociable Streets
Calm Down: a road-dieted neighbourhood street with bike lanes and median strip (Photo: luton on flickr)
Traffic calming has the effect of reducing the speed and volume of motorists without negatively affecting the speed or safety of cyclists. By shrinking the size of the lane(s) available to motorized traffic in each direction, so-called traffic calming can occur either by adding a bike lane or a sidepath in the road space gained.
Road Diets
Increased Service Levels: cyclists have a bike lane and motorists a through lane (Photo: Richard Drdul on flickr)
A road diet actually tends to increase the level of service and safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. The motorist level of service is increased because the one lane in each direction is a true through lane. In the four lane configuration, the leftmost lane doubles as a left-turn land and the right-most lane doubles as a right-turn lane. That means there is no through lane.[1] This assumes that cars will merge into a dotted bike lane to turn right.
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Car Chicanes
Slalom: a one-way street with bike-friendly chicanes designed to slow motorists (Photo: pedbikeimages.org / Dan Burden)
This section is under development.
Bike Cutouts / Sleeves / Slots
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No Entry - Bicycles Excepted: a sleeve limits neighbourhood access to bicycles (Photo: pedbikeimages.org / Dan Burden)
This section is under development.
Ped-Bike Thru: a dead end for cars provides passage for pedestrians and bikes (Image: tuev-nord.de)
Bike Boulevards
Traffic Slowed: a two-way bicycle boulevard where cyclists are given priority (Photo: Payton Chung on flickr)
This section is under development.
Shared Space
Sociable Street: pedestrians, cyclists and motorists and all share the street (Photo: ITDP-Europe on flickr
A woonerf (plural: woonerven) is a curbless street first introduced in the Netherlands in the 1970s and represents a school of thought that proposes to remove many or all traffic signs to increase the attentiveness of all traffic participants including motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. This has been done in many towns in The Netherlands, several in Germany and is being brought to a new community being built in Toronto, Canada.
Taking the concept further, housing communities have now been developed that eliminate or strongly discourage the use of automobiles. See the page on housing for more information.
Living Streets
Home Zone: motorists must yield to pedestrians and cyclists in the street (Photo: jungaroo on flickr
A living streets is a street in which the needs of car drivers and motorized traffic are secondary to the needs of users of the street as a whole, that is, where cars do not have priority.
Living streets are a core component of cycle-friendly housing.
References
1. Road Diet -- 4 lanes to 3 lanes
Keywords
sustainable development, urban planning, urban design, complete streets, traffic engineering, traffic calming, accessible environment, designing for negotiation, self-reading street, road dieting, neckdown, bump-out, speed table, curb extension, roundabout, traffic shaping, traffic volumes, traffic flow, traffic lights, traffic signals, traffic signs, signage, signal timing technique, calculated speed, road traffic control, rat running,
