Sustainable Land Development Today - January 2009 - (Page 43)

Graphic 3: Clover Ridge, Chaska, Minnesota more importantly, excessive streets are counter to providing efficient flow. There are situations where little consideration has been paid to simply allow residents an easy way to get home. Such plans can be very inefficient with areas of double-fronted internal streets in a maze of short runs and tight turns. Tight grids with short runs and 90-degree intersections, sometimes with smaller features, such as tiny circles at corners, create further delays and consume energy. Residents may require five to seven turns before entering their garage. Furthermore, when you consider how difficult and time consuming it is to drive through such subdivisions, imagine how few residents will want to take the time to walk through it. Even with walks on both sides of a street, there may be virtually no interconnectivity through the subdivision. have progressed through an evolution of development patterns where simply using the offset command in CAD is not good enough. Continuing to create patterns of development in the manner we have been in for the past century is not good enough. In an attempt to add interest to an otherwise basic design by placing traffic circles within a low-traffic site may be trendy, but is not true innovation. Site planning sets the framework for many centuries of living – being “trendy” should not be part of the picture – being efficient, environmental, and connective will always be “in.” SLDT About the author: Rick Harrison is president of Rick Harrison Site Design (www.rhsdplanning.com) and author of Prefurbia. Prefurbia is published by Sustainable Land Development International (www.sldi.org) and is also available directly at www.prefurbia.com Throughout the book Prefurbia, there are hundreds of new methods, concepts, ideas and conditions concerning the design and development of our cities. Coved Developments When we first developed the coved method of design, we knew that we must harness the curved street pattern or the time to get home would be significantly increased compared to typical subdivision and New Urban design. Our early coving designs concentrated on efficiency in street length, creating a better subdivision, then applied elements to the design that create a better neighborhood. In the Project Showcase section of my book, Prefurbia, there are over 20 neighborhood examples illustrating flow. All but a few have a key element we strive for in all of our neighborhood designs: everyone who enters a neighborhood should be able to arrive at their destination after encountering only one turn or less. Another key is to have a complete walking system – designed for convenience. This means that the walk system often does not follow all of the streets. Balancing both vehicular flow and walking convenience simultaneously is not an easy task. (Graphic 3) But this forces the question: An example of a Coved development in Stephenson’s Should land planning be easy? We Orchard, Kansas, Missouri Circle 174 or www.SLDTonline.com/webcard www.SLDTonline.com 43 http://www.rhsdplanning.com http://www.rhsdplanning.com http://www.sldi.org http://www.prefurbia.com http://www.biomicrobics.com http://www.biomicrobics.com http://www.SLDTonline.com/webcard http://www.SLDTonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Land Development Today - January 2009

Sustainable Land Development Today - January 2009 Contents Our Voice Your Voice The BottomLine SLDI in Focus Calendar Industry Rebound Will Require Balanced Approach What Happened to Fannie and Freddie? Added Value in Entitlements Industry Spotlights Technology Wastewater Innovation Classifieds Advertiser Index Editorial Board SLDT Resources Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - January 2009

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