Implement traffic calming policy/measures, including lane conversions (road diets), roundabouts, low-speed streets, shared space and depaving, in at least one street redevelopment project.
Best Practice of this action
Resources
Safety:
- See Minnesota’s Best Practices for pedestrian and bicycle safety (MnDOT, 2023), including education, planning/research, design and engineering, and grants/funding opportunities.
- The Small Town and Rural Design Guide (Center for Prevention, MN: 2017) provides information on bicycle and pedestrian facilities specifically applicable to small towns and rural communities.
- See MnDOT's Traffic Safety Fundamentals Handbook (MnDOT, 2015) which includes a toolbox for strategies, and many other safety-related reports and publications.
- See the Vision Zero Community criteria to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
Traffic Calming:
- The traffic calming database (Institute of Transportation Engineers, 2023) provides a series of factsheets for several traffic calming measures.
- The MN Dept. of Transportation provides resources on roundabouts.
- A Roundabout Database (Kittelson & Associates, 2023) is an online inventory tracking roundabouts since 1999 across the world.
- One approach to traffic calming relies more on changing the psychological feel, rather than the physical geometry, of the street. Shared space and paint the pavement are 2 techniques, also known by the terms naked streets, living streets, street reclaiming, mental speed bumps, woonerfs.
- The Un-paving or American Roads (Strong Towns, 2016), or keeping a gravel road usually has traffic calming and financial benefits but the effect on nearby surface water is site-specific and can be so negative as to overwhelm the benefits. See gravel road maintenance resources from the Minnesota Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP).
Reduced Speed Limits:
- Reduce posted speed limits on municipal-owned streets as allowed by a state law passed in 2019.
- See information from the Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the League of Minnesota Cities.
- The Minnesota Statewide Speed Limit Vision Project is working to develop a consistent and unified vision related to speed limits.
Road Conversions/Reconfigurations:
- Learn more about 4 to 3 lane conversions/road diets and see Minnesota case studies developed by the GreenStep Cities program for Albert Lea, Battle Lake, Parkers Prairie, Richfield, and Saint Paul/Ramsey County.
- Note also that streets with fewer than 1000 average annual daily trips at peak hour generally need only two lanes, and that generally no street handling fewer than 10,000 AADT should qualify for left-turn lanes or a center turn lane.
- See MnDOT's Advanced Flexibility in Design workshop.
- The Urban Street Design Guide (National Association of City Transportation Officials, 2023) is a blueprint for designing streets that are safer, more livable, and more economically vibrant.
- Imagining Livability Design Collection (AARP, 2015) provides a visual portfolio of tools and transformations.
- The Tactical Urbanist's Guide to Materials and Design (Street Plan Collaborative's, 2016) provides guidance for citizen-led demonstration and city-led pilot and interim design projects.
Order Number
6
Action Type
Finite