You might keep in mind that there are some downsides to back-in parking, some significant enough that the City of San Jose (Calif) passed an ordinance making it illegal to back into parking stalls. The rationale is that drivers go faster when moving forward than backwards. People who park...
Thanks roncity for the post. They required the developer to install it but did not get into details in this additional condition of development. Thus if it goes in but warrants are still not met, your suggestion is a good one. It is already a 4-way stop so I would just operate it on red...
We have impact fees in place. Where warrants are not met on a development, they just pay their fees. The elected officials in this case said not good enough and they wanted the signal in even though warrants are not met. Everything in excess of a developer's fair share fee obligation in our...
We currently have a situation where the developer's traffic impact study evaluated an intersection and determined that NO signal warrants will be met in the existing + project condition. Our own annual studies support this finding. But yet in the future when further development occurs the...
Unfortunately we have a "traffic circle" in the most popular shopping center in town that is often cursed and frowned upon by some people. Of course professionals can point to the difference between the two! We will have to see how people drive them in the dense winter fog. Worst case is that...
You have a number of valid points and are raising good questions. Fire can handle an isolated choke point since a fire truck will fit within a 12' travel lane. As for where to park, a situation has developed in California that I'm not sure is occurring elsewhere. Due to high housing prices...
One of our senior plan checkers is concerned that someone will drive smack into it because the roundabout requires you to curve around the perimeter whereas 95% of our streets are all N-S or E-W. I think the splitter islands will alleviate this, but he still describes the roundabout as an...
OK, there has been plenty of good input and some digressing from the topic. In our City traffic department, we actually get some complaints about the narrower residential streets. In one case of a 36' wide street, people are asking us to paint red curb on one side to eliminate parking and make...
Regarding the local street cross sections, many California cities have similar requirements. The 60' R/W provides 10' from face of curb to the R/W line for a sidewalk and planter strip, with 40' curb-to-curb. That means 20' from C/L to face of curb which allows for on-street parking on both...
Have other traffic engineers successfully or unsuccessfully used chokers in residential streets to slow down traffic? I have seen material recommending the use of "chokers", meaning a narrowing of a local residential street to slow down the traffic. Typically a 60' residential street (40' curb...
What have other City traffic engineers determined about the locations required for ADA curb ramps (wheelchair ramps) at local residential street intersections? For the older 4-leg intersections, it is very simple in that ramps should go on all four curb returns. But the trend in California for...
Has anyone dealt with roundabouts in a region with severe dense fog? In the Central Valley of California, the winter months can bring thick tule fog that at times does not allow the driver even 50' or 100' of visibility. Some of the local developers are very keen to install roundabouts due to...
