4e

Chicanes: Chicanes can be considered "lateral deflectors." Chicanes prevent drivers from taking a "straight shot" down the street by forcing them to negotiate "off-sets" along the right of way. Chicanes also provide the opportunity to design landscaping and furnishings into a generally less "linear" pedestrian environment. These landscaped areas also provide opportunities for environmental alternatives for handling storm water and snow storage.

Bulbouts: Bulbouts (also called neckdowns) narrow the distance across a street at pedestrian crossings by bringing the curb out into the parking lane. The psychological effect for drivers is similar to narrowing streets, while pedestrians are less vulnerable as they cross a shorter distance.

Angled Parking: Angled parking increases the buffer between the sidewalk and the street, while forcing drivers to be more careful when backing out of a parking stall.

STREET DESIGN
*Street Design Concepts* Concerns were raised from the beginning of the Study in regards to the limited right-of-way width and the extent of curb cuts and intersections along the Corridor. Reuse and infill development along the Corridor could facilitate the reduction of curb cuts which would benefit both traffic and transit flow, improve bicycle safety, and help to create a better pedestrian environment. Traffic Calming Traffic in much of the Corridor is "un-pedestrian" in velocity and scale. Traffic calming measures help to replace auto-dominance with pedestrian-equivalence by making streets, which are necessarily shared by pedestrians, bicycles and cars, safer and less intimidating for pedestrians. Along Central Avenue and State Street, traffic in the urban portions of the Corridor can be "calmed" by utilizing narrower lanes, providing on-street parking, and appropriate pedestrian signalization. In the more suburban parts of the Corridor, through traffic can be separated from local traffic by creating "multi-way" boulevards; . The following are traffic calming measures which can be applied in neighborhoods and districts along the Corridor. Some are applicable to Route 5 itself while others are best suited to streets within surrounding neighborhoods and districts where appropriate: Narrow Streets: A basic way to introduce "pedestrian-equivalence" is to reduce the area of the street which is dedicated to through traffic. By doing this, the perception of a narrower streets prompts drivers to decrease their level of risk by dropping their speed. With the additional margin for error in a wider traffic lane, drivers will increase their speeds to maintain the same level of risk. Methods for decreasing the perceived width of a street include visually distinguishing the streets uses by separating traffic lanes from parking lanes, and parking lanes from pedestrian traffic using grade changes, changes in paving, bollards, furnishings, striping and landscaping. These elements help to organize the public space on the street while allowing the uses to coexist. Shorten Turning Radii Around Corners: Corners designed with longer turning radii (20 feet or more), or "soft" corners allow drivers to turn a corner faster and less carefully, whereas a shorter radius forces a driver to come to a near stop and to check the intersection more carefully for automobile and pedestrian traffic. Vertical Deflectors: Vertical deflectors include speed bumps, dips and tables which intermittently raise or lower the grade of the roadway so as to force drivers to decrease their speed as they negotiate the grade change. Speed tables are raised areas of asphalt which are generally long enough to allow the front and rear wheels of the vehicle to make the grade change before returning to the normal grade. Speed tables can help to define pedestrian crossings and can accommodate snow removal better than speed bumps.	Chicanes: Chicanes can be considered "lateral deflectors." Chicanes prevent drivers from taking a "straight shot" down the street by forcing them to negotiate "off-sets" along the right of way. Chicanes also provide the opportunity to design landscaping and furnishings into a generally less "linear" pedestrian environment. These landscaped areas also provide opportunities for environmental alternatives for handling storm water and snow storage. Bulbouts: Bulbouts (also called neckdowns) narrow the distance across a street at pedestrian crossings by bringing the curb out into the parking lane. The psychological effect for drivers is similar to narrowing streets, while pedestrians are less vulnerable as they cross a shorter distance. Angled Parking: Angled parking increases the buffer between the sidewalk and the street, while forcing drivers to be more careful when backing out of a parking stall.


Transitways Dedicated transit lanes in the most congested parts of the Corridor will improve the flow of both transit and general traffic by restricting conflicts between the two. Improved flow means more dependable and efficient transit service that attracts increased ridership. The figure to the right illustrates the application of a dedicated transit lane along a comparable arterial street in Long Beach, California.
Boulevards Conflicts occur between local and thru-traffic, impeding both mobility and accessibility to properties along the Corridor and its side streets. One method for reducing these potential conflicts is to reduce the number of curb cuts and provide connections between parking lots so that some local traffic does not need to use Central Avenue or State Street. Another method to improve the flow of traffic in this section is to reconfigure the roadway into a multi-way boulevard which physically separates local and thru-traffic. Such a treatment may be utilized in Suburban Albany and Colonie. The figure below illustrates such a boulevard street configuration that could be developed on Central Avenue. Boulevards allow local traffic and bicycles to utilize a local accessway, in this case on-street parking is also provided on the accessway. Through traffic would utilize the four lanes in the middle of the roadway and would be separated by landscaped medians from the accessways as in the figure below. Bus Rapid Transit would travel in the through lane adjacent to the median. With additional widening of the right-of-way, transit stops may be located on the median.