Access Management is the process that provides access to land development while simultaneously preserving the flow of traffic on the surrounding road system in terms of safety, capacity, and speed . Access Management attempts to balance the need to provide good mobility for through traffic with the requirements for reasonable access to adjacent land uses. With good access management, the flow of traffic will be smoother and average travel speeds higher and there will be less potential for accidents. The more conflict points that occur at an intersection the higher the potential for vehicular crashes. When left turns and cross street through movements are restricted, the number of conflict points is significantly reduced .
Intersections created by public streets and driveways represent basic conflict areas.
Adequate spacing allows drivers to react to one intersection at a time and reduces the potential for conflicts . Through traffic often needs to slow down for vehicles exiting, entering, or turning across the roadway. Providing turning lanes, designing driveways with large turning radii, and restricting turning movements in and out of driveways allows turning traffic to get out of the way of the following traffic. The design of good internal vehicle circulation in parking areas and on local streets reduces the number of driveways that businesses need for access to the major roadway. Access Management is an obvious strategy in the fight to preserve the travel speeds and minimize accidents in our roadway systems.