How do you measure how busy auto traffic on a street is ?
Pleasanton city traffic engineer Jeff Knowles explains this new method
the city is considering adopting to measures the impacts of traffic on
residential streets that would rely less on numbers and more on
"quality of life" issues.
Instead of looking only at how much traffic streets can bear, the new
standards would try to gauge how traffic volume effects residents'
ability to walk across the street, ride bicycles, or get in and out
of driveways.
Under the current system, the flow of traffic on streets and
intersections is graded on a A-through-F letter scale, with "A"
describing traffic that's flowing smoothly, and an F describing
gridlock.
If the city's computer models show a new development would push
traffic in the area past the "D" level, its backers must scale their
projects back or pay for road improvements that address the problem.
That system has worked for major arterials, where the goal is to
prevent traffic congestion. But on residential streets in
neighborhoods, residents may notice increases in traffic long before
streets reach their carrying capacity.