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                        Road Diet Informational Guide


            
            In This Section
        Other Safety Areas
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                6. Conclusion
The most common Road Diet involves converting an existing four-lane, undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center two-way, left-turn lane (TWLTL). Road Diets can be used to address safety concerns with four-lane, undivided highways associated with relatively high crash rates as traffic volumes increase and as the inside lane is shared by high-speed and left-turning vehicles. The reduction of lanes allows the roadway cross section to be reallocated for other uses such as bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, or parking.93

The benefits of Road Diets include improved safety, traffic calming, and the opportunity to repurpose segments of the roadway to create on-street parking, bike lanes, or transit stops. Based on the history of safety studies presented in this guide, practitioners can expect a crash reduction of 19 to 47 percent after installing a Road Diet. Variables include pre-installation crash history, installation details, and the urban or rural nature of the corridor.

When planning for or designing a Road Diet, it is important to be aware of the opportunities and potential drawbacks that one type of treatment may have on other travel modes. When deciding whether a particular element is appropriate for an individual street, or whether a Road Diet in general is appropriate, the surrounding context should be taken into consideration, including the extended roadway network. Each decision will have to be made on a case-by-case basis and will depend on the desired operation of the street in question. Consider coordinating with non-motorized advocacy groups, transit agencies, freight stakeholders, and emergency responders as necessary to understand their needs through the design of a Road Diet. Common feasibility factors include the following:

The need for improved safety for all road users
	A desire to incorporate context sensitive solutions and Complete Streets features
	Operational considerations, such as:
	Whether the existing roadway operates as a de facto three-lane roadway o The need for reduced speed or traffic calming
		Average daily traffic
		Multimodal level of service
		Peak hour volumes and peak direction o Turning volumes and patterns
		The presence of slow-moving or frequently stopping vehicles, such as transit, curb-side mail delivery, and others
	A desire to better accommodate bicycles, pedestrians, and transit service
	Right-of-Way availability and cost
	The existence of parallel roadways, parallel parking, and at-grade railroad crossings.
	Public outreach, public relations, and political considerations.Geometric and operational design features are important during the design of a Road Diet reconfiguration. Geometric design includes identifying details of the project in plan, profile, and cross-section. Important issues include overarching principles of design, design controls, design elements, cross-section design, intersection design, and consideration for all road users. The following list represents just a few of the geometric design considerations one should consider during the Road Diet design phase:

Road functional classification
	Design vehicles, driver characteristics, and presence of non-motorized users
	Corridor sight distance, grade, horizontal curvature, and superelevation
	Cross-sectional elements, such as lane widths, cross slope, presence of curbs or shoulders, access management, and presence of on-street parking or bus turnouts
	Intersection design elements, such as alignment and profile of intersection approaches and intersection sight distance.Practitioners must make a number of operational decisions as well, including cross-section allocation, pedestrian accommodations, signalization changes, transition points, and pavement marking and signing. As with any roadway treatment, data analysis and engineering judgment are required to determine whether a Road Diet is the most appropriate alternative in a given situation.

Once implemented, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of the Road Diet. This typically occurs through studying pre- and post-installation crash data, operating speeds, and operational level of service. Additional tools and methods, both specific and general, should be used to evaluate conversion impacts, including the following:

Safety (e.g., crash frequency/type/severity, pedestrian-vehicle conflicts)
	Travel speeds (e.g., average travel time, mean/85th percentile speeds, percent of vehicles traveling at high speeds)
	Arterial level of service, delay, queuing
	Intersection operations (e.g., turn delays; volume/capacity ratios; signal operations)
	Traffic volume, including diversion to parallel routes
	Corridor operations including transit operations and similar, the two-way left-turn lane operations, and the ability to evaluate "stopped traffic" in one through lane
	Pedestrian and bicycle safety and operations
	Economic impact / livability.In conclusion, a Road Diet can be a low-cost safety solution when the installation is coordinated with scheduled pavement marking modifications or planned in conjunction with reconstruction or simple overlay projects. Road Diets have the potential to solve a number of traffic operations and safety issues and to incorporate non-motorized users when applied at the most appropriate locations.
      
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                    Appendix A – Road Diet Safety Assessment Studies › U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

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