Agenda - 05-15-1990 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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I pedestrian shopping area. Loop system streets move traffic between suburban areas of the city. Although a loop may completely encircle the city, a typical trip may be from an origin near a radial thoroughfare to a destination near another radial thoroughfare. Loop streets do not necessarily carry heavy volumes of traffic, but they function to help relieve central areas. There may be one or more loops, depending on the size of the urban area, and they are generally spaced one -half mile to one mile apart, depending on the intensity of land use. A bypass is designed to carry traffic through or around the urban area, thus providing relief to the city street system by removing from it traffic which has no desire to be in the city. Bypasses are usually designed to through highway standards, with control of access. Occasionally, a bypass with low traffic volume can be designed to function as a portion of an urban loop. The general effect of bypasses is to expedite the movement of through traffic and to improve traffic conditions within the city. By freeing the local streets for use by shopping and home -to -work traffic, bypasses tend to increase the economic vitality of the local area. APPLICATION OF THOROUGHFARE PLANNING PRINCIPALS The concepts presented in the discussion of operational efficiency, system efficiency, functional classification, and idealized major thoroughfare system are the conceptual tools available to the transportation planner in developing a thorough- fare plan. In actual practice, thoroughfare planning is done for established urban areas and is constrained by existing land use and street patterns, existing public attitudes and goals, and current expectations of future land use. Compromises must be made because of these and the many other factors that affect major street locations. Throughout the thoroughfare planning process it is necessary from a practical viewpoint that certain basic principles be followed as closely as possible. These principles are as follows: 1. The plan should be derived from a thorough knowledge of today's travel - its component parts, as well as the factors that contribute to it, limit it, and modify it. 2. Traffic demands must be sufficient to warrant the designation and development of each major street. The thoroughfare plan should be designed to accommodate a large portion of all major traffic movements on a relatively few streets. 11