Reduction of Street Traffic Congestion by Proper Street Design

Abstract

POOR street design is the underlying cause of street traffic congestion. Traffic regulation and safety education, while important and necessary, can never constitute a solution of this universal problem. The automobile has given new significance to the city's street structure. The narrow, ill-arranged streets of most cities are not adapted to the needs of modern traffic. St. Louis had approximately 16,000 motor vehicles registered in 1916. The 1923 registration exceeded 100,000 motor vehicles and this figure will be increased to 200,000 by 1928. Traffic counts show an annual increase of 25 per cent in vehicle movements upon the city's streets. Something more than traffic regulation is needed. Freedom of traffic circulation is a commercial necessity. In 1916 St. Louis possessed 940 miles of streets. Three-fourths of this street milage was of 60-foot width. The other fourth, of varying greater width, was so unsystematically distributed as to be more or less useless in any citywide scheme of traffic circulation.