SUBURBAN AND RURAL PEDESTRIAN/BICYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE: Fitting the Design To The Location
Diversity – of people, buildings, land use, business, and transportation options – vary greatly between urban, suburban, exurban, and rural areas. Addressing our transportation system’s negative effects – congestion, cost, climate, health, safety, isolation, waste, and more – requires multiple strategies and multiple road designs appropriate for different types of areas. The toolkit of mobility strategies and road designs need adjustments and the mix needs to be tailored for the density and other characteristics of each type of place. Rail, bus, shuttle, shared vehicle, and – most powerfully – land-use planning strategies will continue to be part of the package, only they will need to be packaged differently outside of cities. This has even been recognized by the Federal Highway Administration, who recently published the Small Town and Rural Multimodal Networks guide that provides some options for accommodating walking and cycling in small and rural communities. In that same spirit, here are some thoughts about walking and bicycling facilities for non-urban areas.
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