The board of the North Carolina Department

The board of the North Carolina Department of Transportation has approved a set of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Street Design Guidelines. The guidelines can be applied to development projects outside city limits where the state builds and maintains road systems. The guidelines stipulate that streets should be designed to be only as wide as needed for low-speed traffic and allow on-street parking. The guidelines allow streets that are fronted primarily with single homes to be as narrow as 18 feet curb to curb with a 40-foot right-of-way. Residential streets with a variety of housing types must have a minimum right of way of 50 feet, a 28-foot roadway, and a design speed of 20 mph. In the existing Subdivision Road Minimum Construction Standards, the narrowest street is 26 feet curb to curb with a design speed of 30 mph and no on-street parking. In addition, the guidelines state that sidewalks should line both sides of most neighborhood streets, that six-foot-wide bike lanes should be built on high-volume streets, and that trees should be planted between the street and the sidewalk to provide shade and encourage walking. The guidelines would let developers of TNDs skip the often lengthy review and approval processes that are common when seeking variances to the existing standards. Planner Harrison Marshall emphasizes the guidelines can’t be used for purely residential developments. “Our basis is that the guidelines be used in mixed-use developments, where there is the possibility of reducing vehicle miles traveled and converting car trips to other means of transportation.” The guidelines can be downloaded from www.doh.dot.state.nc.us/operations/tnd.pdf.