Road diets and impact analysis

[Tall Fella']

I'm a student with two projects cooking and I'm looking for information on them.

I'm helping write a term paper on "road diets", retrofitting/re-designing streets with lane reductions, sidewalk extensions, etc. and I'm looking for case studies or people's anecdotal experiences with them. Are do the number of accidents/fatalities go down after a these projects are completed? Or maybe crash numbers go up, but intensities go down (fender-benders vs. pile-ups)? Do bike/ped counts generally go up?

Also, I'm doing a fiscal impact analysis for a county looking at how projected population, land-use, etc. will impact the demand for transportation and fire services? Is there any national standard or average ratio of firefighters to people? 5 firefighters per 10,000 people, etc.? I'm also looking for costs of average fire engines and firefighter's salaries.

I appreciate any and all thoughts.

[Margin Walker]

The only person that I have heard talk with authority about road diets is Dan Burden. They are an idea that many people seem to be interested in, especially when you talk about roads through neighborhoods and communities. At the same time, you get a lot of resistance from public works crews and in many cases DOT. You might see if you can get a conversation with Dan. My understanding is that he is pretty good about getting back to people if you send him a message or call.

Walkable Communities

[BKM]

If you have a way of posting your final product on-line, I'd love to see your finished report. Monster roads are one of my biggest pet peeves.

There is a huge arterial in my town of residence that is four lanes wide with gentle curves loaded with residential driveways and cross streets. They post the damn thing for 25 mph and wonder why people speed. Plus, the City, as I noted, allowed driveways to load onto the street. The setbacks for the houses are no deeper than those you would see in a cul-de-sac-real quality residential environment (although I suppose it beats the current California practice of miles of soundwalls with boring, repetitious landscaping. No wonder nobody walks anywhere. Your decaying skeleton would be found where you fell after having a brain seizure from boredom).