I recently had the opportunity to share my vision for the “Street of Tomorrow” as part of the 2008 University by the Sea event. My vision was not that of the flying cars of The Jetsons cartoon show I watched as a kid; nor was it the image of freeway off-ramps extending up the side of high-rises featured in the movie Minority Report. Instead, my vision was that the “Street of Tomorrow” actually exists today. Throughout the nation and indeed worldwide, cities are remaking their infrastructures, working to balance various mobility options and improving the quality of life for those who live, work, and play along their streets. These notions for “Streets of Tomorrow” go by names like Mental Speedbumps, Complete the Street and Green Streets; all include elements like bike lanes, permeable paving, street trees, medians, and curb extensions. Such elements can create safer, greener and friendlier streets, without the necessity of fantastic futuristic technology.

 

Yet while these practical yet effective ways to improve urban streets are laudatory, it bears noting that one of the most overlooked ways to improve any street is simply to reduce it to its essentials. While it is congested streets that often gain the most attention, what occurs just as often (if not more) is that roadways are wider than necessary to carry the traffic that travels along them. Local examples of this include Los Coyotes in East Long Beach or Carson Street west of the airport. It would be entirely feasible to narrow the amount of roadway on these streets (and many others throughout Long Beach) dedicated to automobile traffic. The freed-up space could then be made available for other uses, including bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and landscaping. Features like these would make these streets more conducive to modes of transportation other than cars (in particular, bicycle), and would also make the areas bordering these streets more livable and pleasant.

 

Reducing the percentage of a street’s width dedicated to automobile traffic in this manner is often termed a “road diet.” It is becoming a growing phenomenon across the United States, as cities try to make their streets contribute more productively to the urban fabric. The goal of a road diet is threefold: first, it can work to calm traffic and thus make streets safer; second, it can improve traffic flow; and third, it can allow for better utilizing the valuable real estate of public rights-of-way. Overall, road diets thus create a more pleasant experience for both travelers and urban denizens.

 

To maximize the traffic capacity of streets, traffic engineers typically work to fit as many automobile lanes as possible, leaving a relatively narrow border on each side for sidewalks and (in some cases) on-street parking. This sometimes results in an even number of lanes, precluding the inclusion of a dedicated left-turn lane. This typically means there must be restrictions placed on left-turn movement, as the left-most lane most do double duty as a left turn lane and a throughway lane. Because the shared lane is obstructed whenever a left-turning car is waiting for an opening to cross traffic, left turns are often limited to non-peak hours.

 

A typical “road diet” involves a road with at least four lanes overall, and removes one lane in each direction. The space made available by eliminating these two lanes is used for creating a dedicated left-turn lane on the one hand, and on the other hand for sidewalks, parkways, bike lanes, or a dedicated right-turn lane. Surprisingly, eliminating one through-lane in each direction does not result in a proportional loss of car-carrying capacity, and the addition of a dedicated left-turn lane (and sometimes a dedicated right-turn lane as well) helps reduce congestion. Adding turn lanes in this manner can also decrease accidents, because it results in fewer lane changes and better visibility for on-coming traffic.

 

Within Long Beach, one great candidate for a road diet is Broadway between Alamitos Beach and Bluff Park, where it currently has two westbound and two eastbound lanes. This area is dense with residences and retail, so cars must often make left turns, blocking one of the two lanes in either direction. This stretch of Broadway could be reconfigured so as to have just one “through” lane in each direction. There would then be space to provide a dedicated left-turn lane that could be accessed from either direction, combined with a planted median. The existing narrow sidewalks on Broadway could then be widened as well. Such a transformation of this stretch of Broadway could completely alter the street’s character, improving the quality of life for residents as well as the commercial environment for businesses.

 

Major thoroughfares on the eastern side of Long Beach tend to be wider than those in older portions of the city, as they were planned when automobiles had already become the dominant mode of transportation. For instance, Carson Street and Los Coyotes Diagonal both carry similar amounts of traffic as Redondo Avenue or 7th Street, but have they wider lanes and a greater number of lanes overall.

 

Because most of these major streets in eastern Long Beach already have turn lanes, “road diets” are not necessary to add such lanes. Instead, “lane diets” for these streets could be employed to reduce their excessively wide lanes. Typically the lanes of these streets are between twelve and fifteen feet wide. Narrowing these lanes to ten feet at intersections (the minimum width considered safe for emergency vehicles, buses, and trucks) and eleven feet elsewhere would free up the space needed to transform these streets into beautiful boulevards with comfortable bike paths, landscaping, and multiple rows of street trees.

 

A city looking to improve the quality of life for their residents and create more vibrant thoroughfares should analyze the ability to implement road and lane diets before any road construction.  This strategy can fundamentally alter a city’s fabric, turning swaths of concrete into tree-lined thoroughfares, improving traffic flow and making urban life more hospitable for all.