Street width - what width do you model

[Anonymous]

I'm working on a city scene with a large four lane blvd. In real life this would be around 64 feet. (4 12' lanes and 2 8' parallel parking lanes). In HO, this is around 9" wide and seems too wide for a layout. What do you use for widths of 2 lane and 4 lane highways and streets on your layouts? Also what do you typically use for city sidewalk widths?

[orsonroy]

I've actually measured the width of various streets around town (to some odd stares from passers-by) and come to the same results. Of course, older lanes are about 10 feet wide, and rural unimproved roads can get to be as little as seven feet wide (total, not per lane!)

I generally take an average sized HO scale car and base lanes off that. My lanes usually come out to be no more than 1.25"-1.5", making a four lane road no more than 6" wide. I think that's plenty for a model RR.

[DSchmitt]

On Califironia highways the narrowest lane that would be stripped is 9 feet. I believe this is based on federal standards. So 1.25" for the travel lanes would be good in HO scale.

One thing to consider is the size of vehicles on your street. Be sure that they scale or slightly smaller and/or use smaller prototypes.

Sidewalks on major downtown streets may be 6'-10' or more wide. 5' would probably work visually with 9' lanes on a model.

[dknelson]

I think street width is a classic case of where selective compression can work well. A prototype width street can look somehow "too wide" just as a prototype height tree looks "too tall." And in both cases they can dominate a scene. if that scene is a focal point of your layout then it can work well to be prototype size but otherwise, I'd scale it back a little just so long as it is plausible. This helps prevent the rest of the layout from looking cramped and toylike. (I know it sounds counter intuitive to look more authentic if other than accurate scale, but our curves are too sharp, our trains are too short, and our perspective is too artificial without using ruses like selective compression to make things look more plausible.

Dave Nelson