![]() ![]() Street sections with lane widths of 11, 12, or 13 feet in urban settings with a 20–25 or 30–35 miles per hour speed limit that do not serve as a transit or freight corridor should be considered first for lane-width reductions.The recommendations are based on the report’s seven-city analysis and interviews with officials in department of transportation offices in five states-Vermont, Florida, Colorado, Delaware, and Oregon. The report also includes a set of policy recommendations for possible lane-width reduction projects with a focus on urban settings. They looked at lane width, number of lanes, median types, shoulder widths and types, presence of sidewalks, bus stops, on-street parking, turn lanes, number of intersections, speed limits, and roadside details such as buildings and trees. Using Google satellite imagery and information from city and state departments of transportation, the researchers analyzed the relationship between lane width and the number of crashes that occurred in each road section from 2017 to 2019. The researchers then randomly selected about 15 percent-1,117-of street sections for the analysis. cities that had similar average daily traffic and more than 21 key roadway design characteristics such as number of through lanes, presence/types of medians, and on-street parking. “What if we can narrow lanes without sacrificing safety, and how can we best use the additional space in the existing infrastructure? That’s what we want to know.”įor the study, the researchers identified 7,670 street sections-excluding highways and interstates-in the seven U.S. “Our study of city lane widths found that contrary to the current thinking, wider lanes in urban areas can lead to a higher number of crashes and ultimately fatalities,” says Shima Hamidi, PhD, Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health and director of the Center for Climate-Smart Transportation at the Bloomberg School. Lack of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure along with street design, specifically travel lane width, contribute to the high rates of traffic-related fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities, especially in in urban areas, have also increased by more than 40 percent from 2010 to 2018. The year 2020 was the deadliest year for pedestrians in 40 years. Road traffic collisions are a leading cause of death for people ages 1 to 54 in the U.S. The main plenary will be livestreamed on November 7 at 9 a.m., EST. The Summit brings together public health leaders across sectors to address pressing public health issues. The report, “ A National Investigation of the Impacts of Lane Width on Traffic Safety,” is being released ahead of the sixth annual Bloomberg American Health Summit in Baltimore, Maryland. However, traffic lanes with 10-, 11-, and 12-foot lane widths have significantly higher crashes than lanes that are 9 feet wide in zones that are 30–35 miles per hour. The researchers also found no significant changes in car crashes with wider traffic lanes in a speed limit zone of 20–25 miles per hour. There are significant increases in crashes-approximately 1.5 times higher-when the lane width increases from 9 feet to 12 feet. The authors found that the number of vehicle crashes do not significantly change in streets with a lane width of 9 feet compared to streets with lane widths of 10 feet or 11 feet. ![]() Reducing lane width would also create more space for other safety and livability features, such as bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks. In an analysis of 1,117 streets in the seven cities, the authors found that reducing city traffic lane width to 9 feet, especially in traffic lanes with speed limits up to 35 miles per hour, could help reduce traffic-related collisions. Local and state departments of transportation have long favored lane widths between 11 and 12 feet for city streets with the assumption that the extra space is safer and can accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. cities-Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Miami, Denver, and Washington D.C.-found that even slightly narrower lane widths are, in many cases, safer than wider ones. The study’s analysis of lane widths in seven U.S. A new report from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Bloomberg American Health Initiative highlights the critical role street design in urban settings plays in traffic and pedestrian safety. ![]()
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