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Placemaking and Health
doing a Lane Narrowing or a Lane Repurposing once identified, the resulting excess space can be reallocated to active transportation modes. A road diet can also create an opportunity to improve traffic operations for motor vehicles by introducing turn lanes at intersections. FHWA studies indicate that road diets to convert a four-lane road to a three-lane road with a continuous left turn lane reduces crash frequency by preventing left-turning vehicles from stopping in a through lane while waiting for an acceptable gap in opposing traffic. This change also limits speeding, hazardous lane changes, and creates a shorter crossing distance for pedestrians resulting in a safer street overall. Such conversions have been found to reduce crashes by an average of 29%. Reducing the number of lanes is often used to add
bike lanes or buffered bike lanes on both sides of the street within the “newly found” space. A common misconception about Road Diets is that they reduce the capacity of the roadway in half, however, in most instances the impact is much less due to delays created by left turning vehicles stopped in the left travel lane of a four-lane roadway. Moreover, when left turns are regularly occurring due to adjacent development on a four-lane roadway, it actually operates like a de facto three-lane roadway but less safe due to all the lane changes needed to avoid left turning traffic. As shown in Figure 4-2, converting from four lanes to three lanes reduces conflict points 31 .
Figure 4-3 Mid-block Conflict Points, FHWA
Road diets can be accomplished with simply a resurfacing and restriping project or through larger reconstruction projects which can be used to increase sidewalk width, add curb extensions, or add landscaping. Figure 4-3 shows a four-lane road repurposed through road dieting.
Figure 4-4 Lane Repurposing
31 Federal Highway Administration https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/desk_ref/sa_15_046.pdf
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