• Designs For Livability. Over the last decade, citizens, <br />planners, and public officials throughout the United States <br />have expressed increased interest in development of com- <br />pact, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. The design of <br />neighborhood streets is a key component in this effort. <br />Nationally, the appropriate width and design of neighbor- <br />hood streets has been the subject of numerous books and <br />articles targeted not just to the planning and development <br />community, but also the general population. In May 1995, <br />Newsweek magazine featured an article on neotraditional <br />planning that listed reducing the width of neighborhood <br />streets as one of the "top 15 ways to fix the suburbs." In <br />addition, developments such as Kentlands in Maryland and <br />Celebration in Florida have gained fame by incorporating <br />many of the features of traditional, walkable neighborhoods <br />and towns, including narrow neighborhood streets. <br />is <br />• <br />Chances of a Pedestrian <br />Surviving a Traffic Coulslon <br />40 30 20 <br />mph mph mph <br />1fSG°~o <br />i <br />f <br />f 10 I 6056 95% . <br />Survival Rates <br />Graphic adapted from "Best Management <br />Practices," Reid Ewing, 1996; data from <br />"Traffic Management and Road Safety," <br />Durkin & Pheby, 1992. <br />Safe and Livable. There is growing appre- <br />ciation for the relationship between street <br />width, vehicle speed, the number of crashes, <br />and resulting fatalities. Deaths and injuries <br />to pedestrians increase significantly as the <br />speed of motor vehicles goes up. In 1999, <br />planner Peter Swift studied approximately <br />20,000 police accident reports in Longmont, <br />Colorado to determine which of 13 physical <br />characteristics at each accident location (e.g., <br />width, curvature, sidewalk type, etc.) ac- <br />counts for the crash. The results are not <br />entirely surprising: the highest correlation <br />was between collisions and the width of the <br />street. A typical 36-foot wide residential <br />street has 1.21 collisions/mile/year as op- <br />posed to 0.32 for a 24 foot wide street. The <br />safest streets were narrow, slow, 24-foot <br />wide streets. <br />Award-Winning Neighborhoods. In Oregon, citizens, non- <br />profit organizations, transportation advocates, and state <br />agencies interested in the livability of our communities have <br />advocated reducing the width of neighborhood streets. <br />Several new developments that include narrow neighbor- <br />hood streets such as Fairview Village in Fairview, West Bend <br />Village in Bend, and Orenco Station in Hillsboro have re- <br />ceived Governor's Livability Awards (See Appendix A for contact <br />4 <br />94 <br />