Fictional City, Real Solutions
What can a fictional city teach us about planning for real ones?
Earlier this year, we submitted an entry for ITE’s “Optimizing Main St.” competition. The prompt: “optimize the right-of-way for a corridor that could serve as an example in terms of balancing corridor needs, safety, operations, mobility, equity, and livability.” The corridor in question was a one-mile stretch of Main St. in the imaginary City of Neverland. Among the competition’s parameters, our entry had to provide bus stops, accessible parking, and flex curbside uses while maintaining at least one vehicular travel lane in each direction.
Our vision is for a street that functions as a safe and effective transportation corridor as well as desirable public space, serves the social needs of residents, and creates an active and thriving retail base. This corridor supports the essential needs of businesses and residents while maximizing space for people outside vehicles. It applies equitable infrastructure upgrades to ensure equal safety outcomes for all users, regardless of mode, age, or ability.
In the below images, we’ve highlighted some of the key features of this ambitious proposal.
SAFETY
At the center of our approach for this busy corridor is to elevate Vision Zero design principles to create a welcoming and lively urban environment free of fatalities and serious injuries. The design creates public spaces that are accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable users, by providing as much protected space for each mode as possible (using physical separators), lowering speeds to reduce the severity of potential impacts, carefully designing shared/mixing zones where unavoidable conflicts would be concentrated (using creative designs and pavement markings), and clearly defining how different spaces function (using innovative signage and pavement markings).
A. Protected spaces for all users, including large sidewalks; a two-way protected bike lane ; and flexible sidewalk/curb extensions that can be used for bus stops, loading activity, bicycle/scooter parking, etc.
B. Controlled vehicular and bicycle/scooter speeds, through the implementation of tight turning radii, narrower travel lanes, a bicycle green wave, and treatments such as raised/street-level platforms and rumble strips at crossings.
C. Intersections and driveway designs that minimize conflicts between users. Treatments include Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPIs) at all signalized intersections, turn restrictions, bicycle signals, bicycle two-stage turn queue box, and podotactile strips/tiles.
D. Visual treatments that encourage safer behaviors, such as easy-to-read signage, creative intersection/ street paintings, green pavement in the cycle track, solar powered flashing beacons at all unsignalized intersections, curb embedded flashing lights that turn on when cyclists are approaching pedestrian crossings or driveways, and no on-street parking within 30 feet of the intersection to improve sight lines.
OPERATION AND CURB MANAGEMENT
Studies have estimated that about 30 percent of traffic in urban centers is cruising while searching for available parking. Efficient parking management can reduce cruising for parking and reduce double parking, which lowers the likelihood of traffic congestion. Our approach incorporates a flexible design to enable a mix of curbside uses—including bus stops, on-street parking, passenger and freight loading/unloading activity—as necessary to best serve the adjacent land uses. Loading zones are strategically placed and sized in anticipation of the level of use depending on the adjacent land use, consolidating loading zones where possible so that one loading zone can accommodate multiple parcels. In addition, smart parking technology will be employed between the market and the library to adjust the curbside regulation throughout the day to adapt to the changing needs of the land uses throughout the day. This flexibility enables the same curbside space to be used for loading and unloading, customer parking, or valet service.
A. The two-way protected bike lane adjusts to create space on either side at different points along the corridor..
B. Where the protected bike lane passes a bus stop, the bike lane buffer widens to create enough width for a comfortable bus boarding island with a transit shelter. On the other side of the street, bus stops are in-line with the parking area, allowing passengers to board from the sidewalk.
C. A mid-block pedestrian crossing is added to connect grocery store customers to the parking lot across the street.
MOBILITY
This street design considers the mobility of all users.
A. Vehicles: Two travel lanes are maintained throughout the corridor. The design is intended to keep vehicle speeds low. Loading zones and curb cuts provide dedicated spaces for anticipated activity to reduce congestion and intermittent standing or stopping.
B. Pedestrians: In addition to maintaining adequate sidewalk width, midblock crossings and bike lane crossings in strategic locations serve the expected desired behaviors.
C. Transit: Bus stops are placed at regular intervals. Bus stop areas all include shelters with adjacent crosswalks.
D. Bicyclists and Shared Mobility: The continuous two-way bike lane physically separated from traffic creates a comfortable, connected facility along the entire project. Space is devoted at several places along the corridor for bike parking and shared mobility stations.
EQUITY
In most cities, streets make up around one-third of the city’s public space. The public right-of-way should serve everyone in the community regardless of age, mobility, income, or mode of transportation.
Our design equitably distributes space to accommodate a variety of different users, taking into account the needs of children, seniors, people with disabilities, freight operators, and people doing business. We focused our attention on designing a street that puts people first and creating a space where all users feel safe and can move as they wish.
A. Pedestrians: The proposed design prioritizes pedestrian safety by shortening crossing distances and ensuring that our most disadvantaged users were still protected in all potential areas of conflict. It also aims to create a more enjoyable experience by providing benches, trees, planters, and wayfinding signs.
B. Transit riders: We provided four bus stops going in each direction located at key community points to provide everyone equitable access to parks, stores, community buildings, and medical services.
C. Motorists: By the medical centers, the senior center, and the library, where special accommodations are frequently required, we provided ADA accessible parking spaces.
D. Cyclists: In addition to secure bike parking and bike share stations to make cycling more accessible, a two-way protected bike lane can deliver high-capacity with a small footprint, providing the ability to transport 12,000 people every hour!
E. Freight Operations: We provided loading zones to allow for the safe loading and unloading of goods that keeps operators out of the street, avoiding potential conflicts
F. People doing business: A good street allows for commerce to follow out into the public realm. We provided flex spaces along the northern side of the street that are protected from fast moving traffic. Local restaurants could use these spaces for additional seating, vendors could use them to sell goods, or they could be used for public seating and recreation.
LIVABILITY
A street not worth enjoying is a street not worth visiting.
A. Flexible space along the corridor is dedicated for placemaking opportunities such as pop-up art installations, performance, and outdoor dining/markets. Seasonal amenities such as movable street furniture (tables & chairs and umbrellas) could be available throughout the street along with permanent amenities such as bike parking, planters, light poles etc. During events the whole corridor or few blocks could be closed for vehicle access (“Open Street”).
B. The street serves as a blank canvas for creativity and play. Main Street branding with unique decorations could support commercial vitality and strengthen the community’s identity and sense of belonging. We welcome all members of Neverland to participate in making a livable street by participating in beautification projects like asphalt art and murals. In addition, we invite merchants and residents to maintain the street amenities, take care of the planters, ‘adopt a bike corral’, and help keep the corridor clean and safe.
TRANSFERABILITY
Entering competitions like this one are fun for planners and designers—within the constraints of the prompt, they allow free reign for envisioning best-in-class designs.
But this is not just an exercise in imagination. The above proposal is applicable to other Main Streets with similar characteristics. While contexts vary widely, the principles of adaptable street design remain the same: flexibility, an efficient right of way, equitable design, and a commitment to safety for all users.
Submission Team: Ben Young, Danielle Joyce, David Kaner, Julie Polak, Lauren Ormerod, Lian Farhi, Mark Bennet, Michelle Cabrera, Sarah Mawdsley, Stacey Meekins