Calming down the streets in our neighborhoods

Narrow roads can reduce drivers' speed, accidents

MOSES LAKE — For some new residential neighborhoods, wider isn't necessarily better.

An increasing number of residential developments approved within the city limits are seeing roads with a narrower width and vegetation on either side. It is a design city officials say has a calming effect on motorists and leads them to their goal of a walkable community.

Gary Harer is the municipal services director for the City of Moses Lake, and he cites studies by urban planning expert Dan Burden and the Washington State Department of Transportation showing a driver's field of vision being increased when driving slower. When a motorist is forced to go 15 to 20 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood, it is easier for a driver to see children and animals playing on sidewalks, Harer said. In the event of a child darting out into the street, Harer said the driver can more easily avoid a potentially serious accident.

"You're just going slower and you have a bigger field of vision, and you see those and react," he said.

The idea was one of many Burden brought during his trips to Moses Lake, part of the theme of a walkable community.

"It's going to be really nice when we get a subdivision built so people can see it," Harer said of the developments currently underway.

Harer said a narrower street leaves room in developments for other effects like a field of grass between sidewalks and the curb, commonly referred to as a planter strip. The costs to develop a narrow street end up about the same, he said, as a narrower street doesn't require asphalt but does incur costs from planter strips.

A typical residential street is 36 feet wide, which allows parking on both sides and two travel ways along with a five-foot sidewalk. Narrower streets measure 31 feet wide with a five-foot planter strip behind the curb and in front of a five-foot sidewalk, and allows for minimal traffic when cars are parked on both sides of the street.

"When you go down a street that is nicely landscaped on both sides, it looks like a neighborhood and you just slow down," Harer said.

Getting cars to slow down has been an issue in some neighborhoods, where city officials often receive calls from concerned residents about speeding traffic with children and pets at play. It is still too early to tell if methods designed into city streets will calm traffic, but Harer said officials are optimistic of the designs over other alternatives like stop and speed limit signs that he said don't curb speeders.

Pamphlets put out by WSDOT find installing signs where they are not warranted often install a false sense of security for pedestrians, and encourage other methods like reporting speeders to the police and educating children about street safety. The city will install a sign if its warranted, but Harer said strait and wide streets make it pretty tough for a motorist to only go the 25 mph posted limit.

"People are just speeding," Harer said. "People just don't have time, they have many things on their mind, they're just not paying attention with their speed."

Speed is one thing city officials look to curbing along the main Third Avenue thoroughfare with its redevelopment. The city has approved wider sidewalks and narrower streets along Third Avenue downtown, with construction of at least one block of the street allocated for funding in 2006.

The best example of traffic calming locally Harer said actually sits along a Grant County road near the entrance to the Links at Moses Pointe on Westshore Drive, where a planter strip sits in between two directions of traffic.

"As soon as you see that and get close to that you put your brakes on," Harer said.

Philip Bloom is one resident who sees narrower streets as a possibility for some residential neighborhoods. Bloom is the president of Columbia NW Engineering in Moses Lake, and has been working with a few developers on narrower streets for their residential developments.

Bloom said that some streets in the older Knolls Vista area in Moses Lake are designed narrower, but without a traffic calming design in mind. Newer developments are being designed with trees and other vegetation strips that Bloom said residents will value.

While he doesn't see these newer types of narrow streets doing any good on the major arterials, Bloom feels they do work well in some residential neighborhoods, and said 90 percent of people will drive in tune with the engineering conditions out on the roadway.

"As a driver you're more honed in, you feel things are close to you so you automatically slow down," he said.

Moses Lake City Manager Joe Gavinski likened the narrower streets to the walkable community goal the city has been working toward. Gavinski said in order to build a healthier community for its pedestrians, the city has to first provide the infrastructure and facilities for that walking to take place.

"The goal is to try and slow down traffic and make it more pedestrian friendly," he said.