Hello, I am interested in a fairly specific topic: Parking Delineation vs. Unmarked Parking.

In other words, should a city paint lines on the street for street parking.

More so, in heavy trafficked areas- I don’t mean in places where parking is not competitive. I am wondering if it helps with places that have competitive parking

I and am hoping people here can share with me some good sources of data on this topic.

I tried posting this in the urbanplanning sub but mods removed it so trying here :)

Thanks

I want a variety of opinions and obviously I’m not gonna be planning every roads in my city. But I’ve been given the opportunity to provide insight into how to develop the future of my city. This is a real privilege for me and I don’t want to fuck it up.

I would like to ask this subreddit advices because I trust general knowledge more than my limited viewpoint.

We have some priorities established:

• more parks
• more walkability and « permeability »
• a cyclable network
• safe access to schools
• more greenery
• social cohesion

If you’re interested, you can leave a comment with advices, or related books to explore the subject. If you’re really interested you can hit me up with a dm to know more about my location.

Hello, I am considering applying to the Virginia Tech Masters in Architecture with an Urban Design Concentration, but I do not have a background in Architecture or Design. I have long been obsessed with the form and function of built environments as well as city planning, but the program chair expressed that it would be best for me to get a little bit of formal design training prior to applying.

My question is: can anyone on this sub recommend quality and affordable design classes either online or in the D.C. metro area? Preferably this would be a spring semester class which I could take in the spring semester of 2025.

My city in suburban Kansas City has several residential streets in older neighborhoods with no sidewalks or storm drains. These streets are approx. 22' wide and have swales on either side that lead to in-ground storm drains. Here is an example of one such street.

Many residents living along these streets would like to see them improved, and I asked my city councilor about what options the city had. She told me that the city would like to improve them, but it would be very expensive, because the city would have to purchase about 14' of right-of-way from the homeowners along both sides of the street to meet the 50' minimum required by local residential street design standards.

That left me wondering, is there a narrower option that cities could use? For example, here's a street built in the late 1930s that has sidewalks on both sides and on-street parking but is only 37' wide from the outer edge of one sidewalk to another, at least as measured on Google Maps. Now I know that isn't compliant with modern road design standards, and I can personally attest to it being a pain in the ass to park on, but are there more modern examples of older streets being upgraded to modern standards that don't require a full 50' of ROW?

https://preview.redd.it/4jga95k75iud1.png?width=632&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbdfc0fa8174577d77ea4d9c6a99c5492c00603e

Hi! There's a straight street in the middle of our neighbourhood, and private cars are driving too fast. It's needed for bus and emergency vehicles, so cutting car traffic on one end of the central street is not an option. Driving straight through the area by car is forbidden, but police doesn't have resources control it or car speeds as much as it would be needed.

On the right hand side is a small park and the main bus stop shelter, on the left hand side one family houses' yards and street entrances. On both sides of the street there are sidewalks that are also used by bikes. It's probably not possible to reduce the size of the park - there are a lot of large trees.

I was planning to propose something like this: making the street more narrow on both sides to decrease car speeds. The bus could still get through pretty good. Obstacles, such as poles, to make it impossible to drive straight through. Also hopefully place for something green, like narrow trees or a very small meadow, would be nice.

Sorry for the quick drawing, there are obviously some mistakes, like the zebra crossing is in the wrong place (it could be moved) & the parts that make the streets narrower seem too close to the bus stop & plot entrances. Other than that, you do see any major problems with this proposal? Should the parts that make the street narrower be adjacent?

Curious if they're a good addition to cities. They seem like they're not the best substitution to the regular metro system but they're definately better than no public transport at all. I've only seen trams in historic cities where a regular train system would look out of place, but they were usually slow and inconvenient. What are y'alls thoughts?

I bike from SE Portland to NE Portland through the Eastbank Esplanade to and stop along the way to ponder whether the typical US bike wayfinding signage is any good.
Spoiler: It's not
https://youtu.be/tTn7U4JKttQ?si=cLAnc3LaBcSy9MTj

I came from a landscape architecture background, did some economic development planning (vaguely) for about 2 years, and now I'm doing a masters in urban design in Germany on Monday. Give me any of your academic tips for success in this type of program, tips for what to do after grad or what I should consider for the career, or even tips for studying in this country. All appreciated, I'm nervous but excited

Cool idea, even though the explicit purpose of tactile paving is to be visually obtrusive

Hi all. I'm looking for examples of public spaces (seating, planting, areas where kids and old people feel safe to sit and chat) with cycle routes going through. In my experience mixing cyclists and peds in the same space never works. The peds feel (understandably) unsafe when a bike passes close by them. The cyclists are irritated by wandering peds getting in their way. Everyone is unhappy.

I think they need to be separate, so a designated cycle route through the public area with different surfacing and a level difference which peds cross like they would a road (perhaps with a zebra crossing).

Are there any examples of this anyone can share?

My local area (UK city) are looking to introduce a road closure to create a public space, but there is a fairly high cycle through flow and no obvious alternative route. They think allowing cyclists through will ruin the public space, but I think trying to exclude cyclists is unrealistic (they will cycle through anyway) and undesirable (the whole point is to encourage active travel). So looking for examples to share of public spaces which still feel like nice safe spaces, but which have cycle through routes. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Hi! I found that not a lot of schools have an undergrad program for urban and regional planning, so what would be the best major to set myself up for urban grad degree? I think I want to go more towards the housing aspect, the development green/third place areas, or sustainability. Right now i'm a civil engineering major, but it seems more road/ developing transportation focused. I'm also into ecology/ environmental science, i just didn'tt know the extent my CS and math skills needed to be at, which is why i initially chose civil.

Will be visiting Copenhagen soon. Any tips for interesting things/ places to look out for, from an urban design point of view???