Sunset Blvd & Echo Park Ave, LA
David Yoon, an LA-based photographer and self-professed “urban planning geek,” has developed a blog showing before and “after” images of narrowed Los Angeles streets:: Narrow Streets: Los Angeles
Tag Archive for 'street design'
A curb bulb-out is a traffic calming device which has many benefits, including shortening the crossing distance for pedestrians and protecting an intersection from being blocked by parked cars. They are usually made with cement, and therefore can be quite expensive to add to an existing intersection.
Planetizen blogger Ian Sacs discusses his experience in Hoboken, where, instead of using bulb-outs, they simply added two vertical delineators to keep drivers from parking too close to the intersection. This doesn’t help shorten the crossing distance, but still protects the intersection, cheaply and quickly.
NYCDOT published a Street Design Manual back in May.
Jeff Speck has an interesting review of the manual on Design Observer:
Since this collection of best practices is put forward as the recommended policy of our nation’s biggest city, its potential clout makes up for any flaws or limitations in its contents. Of course, its only weakness as a political tool stems necessarily from the same source: I can already hear my Midwestern clients complaining that they don’t want to become New York. But we know that deep down, just a little bit, most of them would like to share some of the magic of America’s most sustainable city.
