Costs and Benefits of Reducing Lane Widths

The research objective is to examine the transportation effects of vehicle lane widths on urban and rural arterials for Utah regarding road safety, highway capacity, pedestrian traffic volume, and agency cost. While controlling for other influences, such as land use characteristics, shoulder widths, other cross-sectional road design elements, the research team empirically measures how much and in which direction selected transportation variables—all/injury/fatal crash rates, vehicle speed, vehicle traffic volumes, pedestrian counts, and road construction/maintenance costs—change with lane widths of urban and rural arterials. This research will find optimal lane widths that promote road safety and capacity, increase walkability, and minimize construction/maintenance costs for urban and rural arterials of Utah. Moreover, using the research findings and a complete dataset of cross-sectional road design elements (e.g., total lane width, total shoulder width, number of lanes, etc.), the team will find priority areas for lane width adjustment projects and suggest potential design improvements. The team believes this research will contribute to increase understanding of road design elements and their relations to transportation benefits and costs and inform evidence-driven transportation practices.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $50000
• Contract Numbers:

  UDOT 228095

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Utah Department of Transportation

  4501 South 2700 West
  Project Development
  Salt Lake City, UT  United States  84114-8380
• Managing Organizations:

  Utah Department of Transportation

  4501 South 2700 West
  Project Development
  Salt Lake City, UT  United States  84114-8380
• Project Managers:

  Chamberlin, Robert

• Principal Investigators:

  Ewing, Reid

• Start Date: 20210728
• Expected Completion Date: 20231229
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefit cost analysis; Highway capacity; Highway design; Highway safety; Traffic lanes; Width
• Geographic Terms: Utah
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01898459
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Utah Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: UDOT 228095
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Nov 8 2023 4:08PM