A Case Study in Flawed Street Design

The above picture shows an example of citizen-led, "tactical" urbanism on a street in Stapleton, Colorado, a neighborhood just outside downtown Denver. A local resident has parked a truck on one side of Beeler Street and a trailer on the other, effectively reducing the road from 38 feet down to 24 feet, in an effort to get cars to slow down. On the back of the trailer is a sign that reads: "Drive like your kids live here."

You might think Stapleton would be immune to stunts that call attention to car-first street design. It was, after all, envisioned as a New Urbanist neighborhood that emphasized compact development and alternative transportation. But the area undermined its planning ideals in the face of conventional traffic standards, says civil engineer Wesley Marshall of the University of Colorado at Denver, and the result has been an unfortunate case study in the hazards of design compromise.