Overview

Operational techniques are a powerful set of tools that can help cities achieve their goals by prioritizing safety of vulnerable users and promoting sustainable transportation modes. To provide an efficient and equitable transportation network, cities must balance regional and local movement while shifting to spatially efficient modes and reducing reliance on private vehicles. The street management framework uses street operations, alongside street design, allocating valuable road space based on safety, user characteristics, access demands, and broad policy goals.

This proactive approach to street operations integrates transportation policy and infrastructure, economic and social needs, and land-use decisions in order to maximize sustainable development and use of efficient transportation modes.

The strategies discussed in this section are generally low in cost and can be implemented with basic technical knowledge. Operational strategies can be progressively modified and adapted based on feedback and performance. These principles have long been applied on access-controlled highways and rural roads but must be deployed differently in urban settings.

This approach is based on a set of priorities and goals, including:

• Design for people first, creating functional walking and cycling networks that bind the city together and provide safe access to every street.
• Integrate robust transit services for district, city, and regional travel that provide the basis for sustainable mobility, especially in large cities.
• Build safety into the system with efficient but lower design speeds in urban contexts, and ensure that higher-speed corridors are either converted to urban streets or remain outside of built-up areas, through strict development management.
• Design for coexistence between people, private vehicles, and trucks by creating a vehicle network that uses street space efficiently. Protect livability on major streets through design strategies that separate user groups and prioritize different activities on different corridors.