Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1. Expand the concept of access management to include corridor management of
both
land development and road access. Consider
“
form based zoning
”
[
17
]to
achieve both design and operations objectives.
2. Manage road access in the vicinity of freeway interchanges. Anticipate major
developments at key interchanges along new or expanded freeways, and design
interchanges by limiting access along major arterial roads to at least 1,000 ft or
more from freeway interchanges.
3. Avoid excessive zoning of land for retail activities. Concentrate commercial
developments at key junctions and discourage/limit strip development along
major arterials.
4. Encourage transit-oriented development (TDO) near major transit stops and
stations. These developments will
improve accessibility,
reduce parking
requirements, and generate transit ridership.
5. Improve the continuity and connectivity of the local street system. The goals
should be to maximize accessibility and to minimize use of arterial streets by
local trips. Systems of streets that form a circuitous and discontinuous routing
pattern increase trip lengths and discourage the use of modal alternatives to the
automobile. Compared to cul-de sac neighborhoods, traditional neighborhoods
built on grid systems combined with higher development (mixed use) densities,
experience a lower VMT per capita and higher utilization rates of non-
motorized modes [
18
]. On traditional grid networks, local streets provide an
alternative to arterials for short trips and lessen the traf
c demand on arterials.
6. Provide public transportation and pedestrian/bicycle access for new develop-
ments. Provide continuous sidewalks, bikeways, and storefronts along retail
streets to encourage walking, biking, and transit riding. Figure
23.4
shows how
building footprints can be transposed by locating buildings close to the streets,
and placing parking in the rear.
This transposition concept achieves several important objectives: (a) the rear-
rangement gives a
look to the development, (b) the building groups on
each side of both streets are within close walk distance of each other, (c) buses
operating along both streets can conveniently serve the various buildings, and
(d) vehicle parking space is close to the rear of the buildings.
7. Extend rail or bus rapid transit to serve developing areas in large urban areas.
Zone the land for commercial and residential densities that are supportive of
transit service at selected suburban stations
in advance
of development.
8. Foster diverse land use activities in centers of developments to encourage
multi-purpose trips, thus reducing the total vehicle trips generated.
9. Require large/major of
“
village
”
ce and mixed use developments to be located near good
public transportation (and also be accessible to nearby residential develop-
ments) as well as good highway access [
20
]. Large mega centers (usually over
500,000 ft
2
or more than 25,000 daily trip destinations) should have some form
of rapid transit with stations within a few hundred feet of major employment
concentrations. The need for multimodal access to mega centers was empha-
sized by Vuchik in his topic,
“
Transportation for Livable Cities
”
[
21
].
