Road Diet: An Alternative to Traffic Improvement
When it comes to traffic improvement, the intuition usually comes to widen the road and offering more lanes. However, this practice might not be the best solution. An alternative is called “road diet.” For a standard two-way two lanes road, the traditional plan increases lanes for cars, whereas the road diet plan adds a middle lane for turning and adds bike lanes on the side.
One might ask: how can reducing roads come to decrease traffic jam? Indeed, it doesn’t. However, research has show that road diet does not increase traffic jam either (Vox, 2018). So why road diet then? In fact, road diet offers several benefits that traditional approach cannot offer.
First, diet roads are safer than traditional ones. Comparing to traditional roads, diet roads have less crash points (less chances that cars crash into each other), which potentially improve safety.
Second, diet roads offer exclusive lanes for bikes. The benefit is profound because bikers don’t need to compete roads with cars anymore. They are safer to commute in the city. With more implementation of diet roads, it can largely promote the usage of bikes instead of cars.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs7jHvh7v-4&ab_channel=Vox
