System Requirements for Viewing this Course

Sponsored by ASCE Continuing Education and the Transportation and Development Institute.

INSTRUCTOR: Nazir Lalani, P.E., M.ASCE 

Purpose and Background

Residential streets are complex places that serve multiple and, at times, competing needs.  Residents expect a place that is relatively quiet, that connects rather than divides their neighborhood, where they can walk along and cross the street relatively easily and safely, and where vehicles move slowly.  Other street users, including emergency service providers, solid waste collectors, and delivery trucks, expect a place that they can safely and efficiently access and maneuver to perform their jobs.  Clearly, balancing the needs of these different users is not an easy task.

In many older and historic neighborhoods built prior to the 1950s, residential streets typically vary in width in relation to the length and function of the street.  It was not uncommon to find streets ranging from 20 feet to 32 feet in width within the same neighborhood.  Newer subdivisions and neighborhood streets built since the 1950s tend to reflect a more uniform design, with residential streets typically 32 feet to 36 feet in width with parking on both sides and little or no variation within a neighborhood. Without traffic calming features, these subdivisions increasingly required retrofitting of various designs to slow down traffic.

The standards for the design of local streets, in particular the width of streets has been one of the most contentious issues in local jurisdictions throughout the United States and other countries.  The disagreements have also been argued at the various levels of government agencies as well as advisory, advocacy, and professional groups that have sought to influence decisions made at the local level.  Planning commissions reviewing subdivisions for approval by elected officials have sometimes been left with difficult and contentious decisions than can backfire on the transportation planning professionals designing and/or recommending approval of new subdivisions.

This webinar seeks to inform participants about what has been done with newer subdivisions to avoid the mistakes of the past and not create new subdivisions that require retrofitting of traffic calming features. Case studies will be included and the webinar will be interactive with the audience to promote the exchange of ideas and collectively learn from the experiences of all participants.

Primary Discussion Topics

• Narrow Streets
• Alternatives to Narrow Streets
• Tradeoffs between traditional street standards and built in traffic calming features
• Key aspects of addressing the needs of all road users and emergency first responders
• Case studies of the pitfalls of designing streets for residential subdivisions

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Have an improved understanding of the four main reasons why badly designed subdivisions cause traffic calming problems.
• Understand why just simply building narrower streets does not always work for everyone
• Identify at least ten ways to incorporate traffic calming in the design of residential streets.
• Using case studies learn how to accurately check five critical design parameters to make sure they comply with the most current best practices.

Webinar Benefits

• Designing residential streets for livability
• Learn what key design parameters impact vehicle operating speeds  and traffic volumes
• Avoiding mistakes of new subdivisions with poorly designed traffic calming features
• Learn about check lists developed by experience neighborhood street designers

Intended Audience

• Transportation engineers/planners for government agencies
• Appointed planning commissioners and elected officials
• Consultants working on private development projects
• Emergency first responders

Webinar Outline

• Addressing parking issues and is impacts to all road users
• Addressing the needs of all road users
• Avoiding future traffic calming issues
• Developing standards for local street designs that work
• Do narrow streets work for all road users?
• Examples of neighborhood street designs-what works and what does not
• How can mini roundabouts make a difference
• Identifying all the stakeholders
• Impacts of slower vehicle speeds on collision severity
• Impacts on emergency response times
• Implementing traffic calming features in new subdivisions
• Learning from Case studies
• Meeting the needs of secondary access
• Taking aesthetics into consideration
• Understand what is meant by Green Streets
• What can happen from the over use of cul-de-sacs
• What research findings can tell us about mistakes of the past
• Why long straight streets are counter productive 

About Webinars