“Road Diet”: Losing Width by Retrofitting

For most of the last century and continuing into this century, transportation planning in the United States has been mainly concerned with accommodating vehicular transportation. This automobile-oriented bias was embedded in travel demand forecasting models, transportation funding, zoning/subdivision regulations, street design ordinances, the general public and the general mindset of policy makers. The result in most cities has been a continual process of widening, and building new roads to alleviate traffic congestion due to increasing automobile ownership. What was not accounted in this automobile bias oriented transportation system was the detrimental impact that it would have on neighborhoods; making them…