• The copious capacity of street grids

    Historic street grids can handle greater traffic of all kinds—so why aren’t we building more of them?
    As far as I have been able to determine, no one has ever scientifically compared the capacity of historic street grids with modern road systems. If they did, this comparison is well hidden—which is amazing because the US has invested trillions of dollars on automobile-oriented street networks on...Read more

  • Urban roundabouts: A tool for placemaking

    Well-designed urban roundabouts solve traffic delay problems while slashing the kinetic energy of motor vehicles in intersections, improving safety and allowing for placemaking.
    Rampant sprawl in Orange County, Florida, was creating rush hour back-ups half a mile long at the Town of Windermere’s quaint Main Street. The conventional solution—widening Main Street to four-lanes—would have destroyed the town’s character. Planner Brian Canin and transportation designer Jurgen...Read more

  • Context-based redesign solves street problems

    A pedestrian fatality spurred a transformation of a thoroughfare in Raleigh, linking a college campus to neighborhoods.
    Note: This case study was written for the Institute for Transportation Engineers new book Implementing Context Sensitive Design on Multimodal Corridors , funded by the Federal Highway Administration. A wide suburban arterial road separating the campus of North Carolina State University from city...Read more

  • Bigger is not better for main street

    Roundabouts and reductions in lane widths helped to restore civic life along a US highway in a western New York village.
    Note: This case study was written for the Institute for Transportation Engineers new book Implementing Context Sensitive Design on Multimodal Corridors , funded by the Federal Highway Administration. US Route 62, connecting Niagara Falls with El Paso, traverses a 2,200-mile cross-section of America...Read more