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Sidewalk/Streetscape Factoids and Expert Advice • Wider streets encourage higher vehicular speeds. • New roads seem only to create more traffic. • We need to try to right the relationship between the city and the car and “put that money into subsidizing more efficient conveyances.” • Pedestrian traffic increases where better pedestrian facilities are available. • Priorities for pedestrians traveling along streets include: safety, efficient mobility, comfort and an attractive, defined environment. • Streetscapes in downtown areas need to be designed to efficiently accommodate high volumes of pedestrians. • In high-use areas, sidewalks need to be wider to accommodate higher pedestrian flows and groups of people traveling in opposite directions. • Generally, sidewalks should accommodate three “zones”: building frontage (“entry”) zone, a pedestrian travel zone and a fixtures/planting zone. • Planting strips of 4’-5’ minimum provide a buffer space from the danger, noise, pollution/splashing of passing vehicles, as well as from the opening of car doors on parked vehicles. These planting buffers can be at sidewalk level bordered by curbing, raised, or developed at the same grade level as the roadway. • Street trees and landscaping can greatly enhance the pedestrian environment both visually and physically but they should be placed out of the pedestrian travel way in a specific planting zone/buffer strip. • A certain amount of “shy” space needs to be accounted for adjacent to buildings in the area where people enter and exit buildings or window-shop. This space is often referred to as the “building frontage zone”. • Obstacles such as signs, street lights, poles, street furniture, newspaper stands and trash cans should be placed off to the side of the travel way in a “fixtures/planting zone”. • Trees and street lights are most useful if they are “complementary to human scale”. • Parallel parking stalls need to provide adequate space for pedestrian movement around the parked car. Typical dimensions of 9’ x 24’ (not including space between cars) are recommended for on-street parallel parking stalls. • Crosswalks need to be a minimum of 10’ wide for safe passage, per industry guidelines. • Sidewalks along state highways used as main streets need to be designed the same as they would be for standard sidewalks in more typical urban pedestrian centers. • Special paving and accents can enhance certain areas and provide a clear message to tourists as to where they should walk. • It is desirable to provide as wide a central and undistracted clear space as possible in areas where there are high volumes of pedestrians. • Widening sidewalks also serves to shorten crossing distances, thus adding to pedestrian safety and reducing signal time needed for pedestrian crossings. • High volumes of pedestrian traffic, short crosswalk signals and the scale of designated crossing areas can all contribute negatively to the flow of traffic. These characteristics have a tendency to influence heavier amounts of unregulated street crossing (“jaywalking”), which impedes consistent vehicular movement. • To create a better walking environment, buildings, architectural elements and landscape should be used to maximize shade and cooling during the hot season. • “A new report debunks the myth that the health of a business is dependent on automobile parking. Designed to evaluate pedestrian conditions on Eighth Street, the Cooper Union Study showed that replacing a lane of parking with wider sidewalks could be popular and good for business. 69% of shoppers favored removing a lane of parking and replacing it with a broader sidewalk. An astonishing 98% of drivers surveyed said they would continue to shop in the area if parking were limited and 10% even said they would leave their cars at home at take transit.” • When retrofitting urban core roads and main streets, space should be better distributed among road functions so as to maximize pedestrian safety and comfort. For example, conditions can be improved by deleting a parking lane on one side of the street to create wider sidewalks or by providing trees and vegetation in planting beds along the curb in lieu of wider sidewalks. • The most crowded and highest volume sidewalks in US urban areas should be widened over the next decade to better accommodate pedestrian travel, thereby encouraging people to do more walking. • Given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees. • To be effective, street trees need to be
reasonably close together… In practice, the most effective tree spacing
is from 15 to 25 feet… If there is a rule of thumb to be learned from
the best streets, it would be that closer is better…the [equal] spacing
of trees [and street lights], once started, should not be stopped, not
for driveways and not for buildings along the way. |
