How to 'Rightsize' a Street

The concept of a "road diet” has become increasingly popular, as an inelegant engineering analogy that implies the slimming down of traffic lanes as if they were so much excess fat. Got a four-lane boulevard in a now quiet residential borough? Bring in some transportation planners and trim that beast down to two!

The phrase fails, however, to capture the wide variety of ways in which streets planned and paved decades ago often awkwardly fit the needs of changing communities today. In many cases, redesigning city streetscapes is not just (or not at all) about eliminating roadway. It may be about adding parking (to benefit new businesses), or building a new median (for pedestrians who were never present before), or simply painting new markings on the pavement (SCHOOL X-ING).