City Street Width

[Anonymous]

As one who is a professional engineer with 20 years in highway design, here's my twp cents. UNtil the 1950's the minimum width for a travel lane ( a lane whre autos move) was 9 feet. As vehicles became larger and faster, this has grown to the current standard of 12 feet, although 10 feet is a minimum for a travel lane.

Right of way widths depend on the classification of the street. Local streets in urban areas often have right of way widths of 2 rods (33 feet), three rods (47.5 feet), or an "odd" number like 45 or sometimes 60 feet. Collector roads (roads that intersect local streets and connect to major arterial streets) are generally in the area of 60 to 90 feet. Arterial streets (streets that move large amounts of traffic) are usually more than two lanes and are often divided. The rights of way are anywhere from 90 to 120 feet. INterstate and state highways built to interstate standards generally have rights of way in the area of 300 feet.

Most roads built after 1960 have a minimum lane width of 12 feet for traffic, and if parking is desired the parking lane is 6 to 8 feet. In urban areas, curb and gutter is used to direct rainfall and stop erosion. The gutter is 2 feet wide and the curb is 6 inches wide. A typical urban (city) two lane street is therefore 12 + 12 + 2 + 2 or 28 feet wide from the face of curb to the opposite face of curb. Median widths for multi-lane highways range from 14 to 24 feet in urban areas.

Sidewalks are generally 5 feet wide, unless there is a large amount of pedestrian traffic ( as in downtown areas of large cities) then the walks are larger ( I've seen up to 12 feet). Sometimes there is a grass strip between the sidewalk and the street (terrace). This distance is anywhere from 4feet depending on the available right of way. I should note that the sidewalks are generally placed 1 - 2 feet from the right of way line.

Rural roads generlaly require more right of way to accomodate shoulders and ditches for drainaige. The lane widths, however, remain at the modern (post 1960) standard of 12 feet.

Since modelling a road to exact scale requires alot of room ( more than we usually want to give on a layout) I selectively compress the road width. I model in N Scale and use AMI instant roadbed for asphalt two lane roads. The material is roughly 20 scale feet wide, and I use thin yellow tape for a centerline. Strip styrene can be used for a curb and for sidewalks. Hope this helped you in some way.

[preceng]

Typically travel lanes have a width of 10-12 feet. Depends on the area of the country, etc. Older streets tend to be smaller with travel lane of 9-10 feet. Most modern streets use 12' lanes. Turn lanes, suicide lanes, etc are the same. On-street parking (parallel to the street) would typically be 9 feet wide (stalls would be 20' long). On curbed streets without on-street parking, many municipalties add a couple feet to the edges (gutter line) to allow storm water catch basins (inlets) to be off the 12 travel lane (saves the bump). On un-curbed streets where an improved (paved) shoulder is used, the shoulder will generally be 2' -10' wider than the white line edge travel (12') lane. Typically an 8' shoulder for disable vehicles, and 2 feet to allow recovery of vehicles straying from the lane. Gravel or sealed gravel shoulders are also use on more rural roadways (if at all). These widths vary greatly.

[Anonymous]

In the real world it is 66 ft, I usually put down some cars and add a little and see what looks right to you,

[Jetrock]

One thing to keep in mind is that most model railroad structures are NOT to scale--if you measure out dimensions, they're all pretty cramped. So a typical group of HO scale structures sitting alongside a street which is exactly 1/87 of a prototypical street's width will look wrong--the street will look too wide because the buildings are too small!

Where I live, streets are usually about 5 "car widths" wide--parking on either side of the street, plus three lanes of traffic (one way) or two broader lanes of traffic with occasional "suicide lanes" for turns. That puts 'em at about the 66 feet mentioned above. In practice I'll probably make the streets 4-5" wide, which is more than enough to park HO model cars on the side and still have traffic that would be dangerously close together in the real world, but just fine for a static layout.

[bluepuma]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jlong

Is there a nominal width for a two-lane city street?

I think everyone cheats anyhow, usually smaller. It really varies based on when date and where region, whether parking on the sides is allowed. Growing up in part of LA, living in Tucson, Pheonix, was suprised at the size of some Blvds elsewhere. Huge - the best we could usually do was two inside lanes with streetcar tracks, perhaps little islands, an outside lane on each side, and another parking lane on each side or only one. Also, one way streets. Many old streets had very high crowns, de-crowning was still occuring in parts of LA County during the past 5 years. The older the part of town, the narrower. Lots of places lost yard as streets were widened, sidewalks added, curbs, etc.

Some new garages are 24 ft. wide, 22 ft. - that looks like a minimum for a sttreet. A long way from a 5 lane on each side to a state highway. I don't see how N scale people live in such tiny houses. Many small places near the ocean due to tiny vacation houses, small lots.

[Anonymous]

A single lane width is typically 10 - 12'... so a two-lane city street would be 24' (without shoulders)

[Anonymous]

I knew I had seen this question somewhere else...

Click here to go to that thread -> http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2007

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Please refer to the City streets thread in the genral forum. I have posted detail infor there as well as others as to what a street size should be.

Jay

[Anonymous]

In many towns, the right-of-way is often 66 feet. This includes both lanes, shoulders (if any), sidewalks, etc.

Some towns with boulevards (streets divided down the middle) used much wider rights-of-way.

Andrew

[jlong]

Is there a nominal width for a two-lane city street?