Street width is necessary to support desirable design elements in appropriate contexts such as on-street parking, landscaped medians, and bike lanes. Excessively wide streets, however, create barriers for pedestrians, and encourage higher vehicular speeds. Wide streets can act as barriers, reducing the level of pedestrian interchange that supports economic and community activity. Wide streets discourage crossings for transit connections. The overall width of the street affects the building height to width ratio, a vertical spatial definition which is an important visual design component of urban thoroughfares. Lane width is only one component of the overall width of the street, but is often cited as the design element that most adversely affects pedestrian crossings. In fact, many factors affect pedestrian crossing safety and exposure including the number of lanes, presence of pedestrian refuges, curb extensions, walking speed, and the number of conflicting movements at intersections.

Last edited by jp.   Page last modified on July 13, 2006