On-Street Design and Resources

These resources consider best practices for designing streets and planning networks that are effective, safe, and accommodating when someone is riding a bike or walking.  While our Complete Streets Ordinance mandates we design streets for all modes of transportation, including bicycles and pedestrians, these resources represent emerging best practices to inform how we accomplish this mandate.  

Local

Master Street Plan (including Master Bike Plan) 2018
The Master Street Plan is the City of Little Rock's go-to planning and design guide for our transportation system.  It requires revision to be informed by the Complete Streets Ordinance and the resources below. (2015)

Road Diets
The following City of Little Rock page has several resources explaining what a road diet is and its safety benefits.

State

ArDOT Action Plan for Implementing Pedestrian Crossing Countermeasures at Uncontrolled Locations 2018
ArDOT is working to improve pedestrian crossings at places where there are no traffic lights to stop vehicles.

ArDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Design Standards 2005
This memorandum outlines ArDOT design standards for bicycle and pedestrian facilities, under what circumstances ArDOT would install these facilities, and who is responsible for their cost.

National

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices 2009 (with 2012 revisions)
AASHTO, NACTO, FHWA, and other resources below provide guidelines for street design that help inform engineering best practices.  In contrast, the MUTCD defines how streets must be designed under national law.

AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities 4th Edition 2012
AASHTO provides the gold-standard for traffic engineer design guidelines.  However, AASHTO's recommendations are often conservative and infrequently updated.  Because of this, particularly regarding bicycle and pedestrian best practices that are rapidly emerging (see references below), FHWA strongly recommends design flexibility.  Because of copyright protections, we cannot post this reference online.  

AASHTO Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operation of Pedestrian Facilities, 1st Edition 2004
AASHTO provides the gold-standard for traffic engineer design guidelines.  However, AASHTO's recommendations are often conservative and infrequently updated.  Because of this, particularly regarding bicycle and pedestrian best practices that are rapidly emerging (see references below), FHWA strongly recommends design flexibility.  Because of copyright protections, we cannot post this reference online. 

Bicyclist Facility Preferences and Effects on Increasing Bicycle Trips 2020

FHWA Bikeway Selection Guide 2019
This informative guide considers the best type of bike facility depending on vehicular traffic speeds and volumes (i.e. with greater vehicular traffic speeds and volumes, greater separation between motor vehicles and bicycles is recommended).

NACTO Urban Street Design Guide
The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is one of the two most respected sources for street design best practices (the other is AASHTO) and has published several references.  NACTO's focus is urban areas while AASHTO considers all areas.  The Urban Street Design Guide is their main reference and considers design for bicycles and pedestrians.  They do not have a dedicated pedestrian guidebook.

NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide
This is NACTO's reference specific to bicycle accommodation.  It includes guides for (unprotected) bike lanes, cycle tracks (a.k.a. protected bike lanes), intersections, signals, signing and marking, and bike boulevards.  NACTO has no equivalent for pedestrian or ADA planning, but resources can be found in the urban street guide.

NACTO Designing for All Ages & Abilities 2017
This guide is part street design and part network planning to design a equitable, mulitmodal transportation network.

Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide 2015
This USDOT/FHWA resource focuses on separated bike lane best practices.  Considering the importance of capturing the "Interested but Concerned" demographic to increase ridership, our community would benefit by increasing the quality of installed bike facilities.

Small Town and Rural Multimodal Networks 2016
While the title of this may make it seem not terribly applicable to Little Rock, the design of some of the streets within our city limits could benefit by these FHWA recommendations.

Concepts

Concept: Induced Demand
While the effect of more vehicular congestion encouraging us to build more lane miles is intuitive, there is substantial evidence that building more vehicular lane miles encourages more automobile traffic.  As bicycle and pedestrian traffic modes vie with vehicles for limited space on streets, the relationship between lane miles and mode use is critical to understand.  

Concept: Lane Width
Compelling evidence shows that narrow lanes encourage drivers to drive more slowly.  Narrowing city street lanes to 10 ft. can calm traffic and thereby reduce the number and severity of collisions.