TITLE:
A Comprehensive Study of a Road Diet Implementation in the US and Abroad
AUTHORS:
Patrick Boyle, Ardeshir Faghri, Rodolfo Gomes
KEYWORDS:
Road Diets, Traffic Safety, Transportation
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.11 No.3,
September
20,
2023
ABSTRACT: Road Diets are far from a new technique for
designers to apply to roadways. Yet after over 50 years of implementation and
countless studies into their effectiveness, it is only relatively recently that
the process is gaining widespread recognition and implementation. Each year,
more states and countries are examining potential road diets and putting them
into place. Still, there remains great skepticism and opposition in many
corners. In addition, cities and states may be drawing from many of the same
sources in how to go about the process of a road diet and evaluate them, yet
their methodology, goals, and even
terminology can vary from region to region. This
paper reviews both domestic and international road diets to examine the
key steps of the process and what knowledge and techniques can be learned from
each case study. How to best evaluate a good site for a road diet, how to best
design and integrate one into a complete streets design, and how to best
evaluate the effectiveness of the process. This evaluation is essential for
both determining what tweaks need to be made to optimize efficiency and to sell
an often-skeptical public about its effectiveness. By taking the best of what
has come before, a better process going forward can be described and
demonstrated to a degree.