PRINCIPLE NO. 1 Reduce Residential Street Width
Design residential streets for minimum pavement width needed to support travel lanes; on-street parking; and emergency, maintenance, and service vehicle access.
Street widths should be based on traffic volume.
Notes:
Excessively wide residential streets can often be attributed to blanket applications of high volume/ high speed highway design criteria applied to local subdivision streets and a perception for the need for on-street parking on both sides and unobstructed access for emergency vehicles. Communities have a significant opportunity to reduce impervious cover by revising their street standards so that street widths are minimized. Residential streets widths should be designed according to traffic volumes while providing adequate parking and access for residents and service, maintenance, and emergency vehicles. Using queuing streets and basing the number of parking spaces created on a per dwelling unit system are two techniques that have been implemented to address concerns about narrow streets. Several national engineering organizations have recommended residential streets as narrow as 22 feet in width (ASSHTO, 1994 and ASCE, 1990).