Adapting Suburban Communities for Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel

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Adapting Suburban Communities for Bicycle and
Pedestrian Travel
Publication No. FHWA-HRT-05-098
Lesson 7
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Lesson Outline

• Historical development of urban and suburban land
  use.
• Costs of sprawl.
• Retrofitting suburban roads to accommodate
  bicycles and pedestrians.
• Safe Routes to School planning.
• Retrofitting commercial/office developments.

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Suburban Development

• Streetcar suburbs.
• Leapfrogging.
• Auto orientation.
• Infilling.
• Street hierarchy.

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Present Land Use Forms

• Individual tract subdivisions.
• Linear arterial streets.
• Bypassed vacant land.

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Suburban Street Scenes
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Suburban Street Scenes
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Suburban Street Scenes
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Costs of Sprawl

• Infrastructure streets, utilities, parks and
  schools.
• Environment.
• Health and physical activity.

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Retrofitting Suburban Arterials

• Independent retrofit projects.
• Evaluation of road widening projects.
• Road diets.
• Form-based codes.

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Restriping to Create Bike Lanes
2 m (7 ft) parking lane
1.5 m (5 ft) bike lane
3 m (10 ft) travel lane
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Road RetrofitBefore
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Road RetrofitAfter
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Road DietBefore
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Road DietAfter
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Safe Routes to Schools (SR2S)
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Health Issues
35 of youth do not participate in regular
physical activity.
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Origins of the SR2S Concept

• Denmark early 1980s.
• Worst child pedestrian crash rates in Europe.
• In Odense, an 80 reduction in child crash rates
  in 10 years.
• United Kingdom Sustrans.
• Demonstration program in 1995 (10 schools).
• Traffic decrease of 12 to 17.

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Marin County, CA

• One of two TEA-21 national models.
• Combination of funding
• County transportation funds, National Highway
  Traffic Safety Administration, several private
  foundations, Bicycle Coalition.
• 21 of morning commute is school dropoff.
• 9 pilot schools and 1,600 students in 2000.
• 23 schools and 12,000 students participating in
  2004.

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Results

• 57 increase in children walking and
  biking.
• 29 decrease in children arriving by car.

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Lesson Summary

• Suburban development patterns have made it
  difficult to use nonmotorized transportation.
• There are many ways to change this condition
• Retrofits to existing facilities.
• New developments.