Street width is one of the most expensive and least questioned decisions in community design.
Over time, a set of assumptions has taken hold about safety, emergency access, parking, snow and traffic.
Many of them sound logical.
Many of them aren’t actually true.
Here are four common myths about street width—and what the evidence really shows, and a book recommendation.
Volume 2.4: Myths about street width
"Wider streets are safer for everyone"
They actually encourage higher driving speeds. Narrower streets tend to slow cars and reduce severe collisions, without any additional elements (like bumpers).
Drivers travel about 2.2 mph faster in 12-foot lanes than in 11-foot lanes, according to a study of 667,000 speed records from freeways in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
How fast would you drive in this compact residential street? 👇
"Fire trucks need very wide streets"
Fire access is used to justify oversized streets, but the requirement is usually about clear access and turning, not overall width. In Ontario, for example, the fire code typically requires about 6 m (20 ft) of clear pavement, far less than many suburban streets provide.
In one of our projects, we solved the requirement by designing continuous loop streets so fire and waste trucks can always move forward without reversing. Because these streets serve only about 50 vehicles per day, they can be compact shared streets.
On local residential streets, capacity is rarely the limiting factor. Typical neighbourhood streets carry very low traffic volumes (often only a few hundred vehicles per day) so increasing pavement width does little to improve movement. What wider streets actually do is increase design speed, encouraging faster driving without meaningfully improving circulation within the neighbourhood network.
A better approach is to rely on fewer, better-designed through streets that manage through traffic and visitor parking. With efficient perpendicular parking and fewer driveways, these streets can handle circulation while maintaining uninterrupted sidewalks and front yards.
"Wide streets are necessary for parking"
Efficient layouts like perpendicular or well-placed parallel parking can fit comfortably on narrower streets without wasting space. By concentrating parking on specific streets rather than spreading it everywhere, neighbourhoods can provide ample visitor parking while keeping most residential streets calm, narrow, and pedestrian-friendly.
Read:Thinking Fast and Slow
This book explains how our brains rely on fast, intuitive judgments rather than slower analytical thinking. Many widely accepted ideas (from investing to street design) persist simply because they sound logical.
By: Daniel Kahneman (Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences)
I first came across his work while learning about economic psychology - a research area that anyone in the business sector will find jaw-dropping.
Smart Density Inc., 579 Richmond St W, Suite 302, Toronto, ON
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