Operational and Safety Considerations in Making Lane Width Decisions on Urban and Suburban Arterials

In an era of multimodal design and expensive right-of-way, agencies must make decisions on how to best accommodate users of the roadway system within limited budgets. One of the driving decisions is how wide the travel lanes should be while balancing these interests and operational and safety perspectives. A few recent research projects have examined the relationship between lane width and safety on urban and suburban arterials. These studies found no general indication (with a few exceptions) that the use of lanes narrower than 12 feet increased crash frequencies. While the research provided excellent insight into lane width/safety relationships, it did not address speed, volume, transit, heavy vehicles, on- and off-street neighboring spaces (e.g., turn lane, bike lane, on-street parking, shoulder width, curb and gutter, another lane next to lane of interest, or the proximity of objects such as utility poles, trees, or street furniture on the roadside), bicycle and pedestrian use, and shared versus exclusive lane use. Therefore, additional research is needed to better answer these questions. The objectives of this research were (1) to investigate the effects of urban and suburban arterial lane widths on operations and safety for all users, (2) produce guidelines for practitioners to determine lane configuration for reconstruction and new construction projects, and (3) propose appropriate revisions to the AASHTO Green Book.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=3630
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Further work will be conducted under NCHRP 03-112A in 2019

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 03-112

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 225
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Reynaud, David

• Performing Organizations:

  MRIGlobal

  ,    
• Principal Investigators:

  Potts, Ingrid

• Start Date: 20140804
• Expected Completion Date: 20171005
• Actual Completion Date: 20171005
• Source Data: RiP Project 37722

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Arterial highways; Highway operations; Multimodal transportation; Right of way (Traffic); Suburbs; Traffic lanes; Traffic safety; Urban areas
• Identifier Terms: AASHTO Green Book
• Uncontrolled Terms: Lane width
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01543528
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 03-112
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 18 2014 1:00AM