1999 Eugene Arterial & Collector Street Plan

New Search

Introduction This chapter provides guidelines and standards for city staff, public agencies, private developers, and others for use in designing and building multi- modal streets that conform to the Goals, Objectives, and Planning Principles for design of arterial and collector streets. Design Guidelines are general statements about factors that should influence the design of the street. They are presented as general design considerations to be used as a basis for deciding what to emphasize where design options are evident, or when con- straints lead to conflicts among the various design elements. Design guidelines are not mandatory and are qualified by "should" or "may" statements. Design Standards are more specific and are in- tended to produce desirable outcomes for arterial and collector street improvements. For minor projects where the street design is not being signifi- cantly altered (described as Minor Projects in the next section), the design standards in this document are to be regarded as highly preferred, but not mandatory. For more major street improvements (described below as Major Projects), these design standards are to be interpreted as required stan- dards. Even so, there will be situations on major street projects where it is not feasible to achieve the minimum standard. In these cases a design excep- tion may be considered. Application of Design Standards The Arterial and Collector Street Plan is intended to provide acity-wide street classification map and a set of design standards and guidelines for the city's arterial and collector streets. While several miles of new arterial and collector streets will be built during the next 15 to 20 years, most of the arterials and collectors already exist. Much of this existing major street mileage will not be altered in any significant way during the next 20 years, although some existing streets will be candidates for various major or minor improvement projects, ranging from traffic calming, to intersection redesign, to major reconstruction of the roadway. Unlike new streets, existing streets will present many constraints to being retrofitted with new standards, due to features like mature trees and narrow rights-of-way. Minor Projects Because of this wide range of circumstances, these design standards must be applied with a certain amount of flexibility and creativity. Many improve- ments to existing streets involve only minor changes to the existing conditions. Projects or activities such. as the following occur frequently on arterial and collector streets: • resurfacing or partial reconstruction of the pavement (preservation projects) • installation of traffic calming features • intersection improvements such as traffic signal changes, turn lanes, etc. • reconstruction of existing features that results in only minor, incidental widening or minor increases in capacity. • retrofitting existing streets with bicycle lanes and/or sidewalks. For purposes of applying the design standards, these types of improvements to existing streets will be designated Minor Projects, for which these design standards are regarded as desirable or preferred .standards rather than absolute requirements. In many instances these standards will not be attain- able, and design exception will not normally be :required in these cases. 43