Density good for Cycling?

Intown Atlanta is going through re-development. Under-utilized properties are planned for more square-footage and that brings more traffic, right? More traffic = bad, right?

The Beltline proposal that was released this past week for the northeast segment argues that density is good and made some good points about how it is good.

For non-local readers, the Beltline is a proposed light rail system that forms a roughly 3-mile radius loop around downtown. It is exciting for the city because this will likely turn into a magnet for new urban development. Parts of this are already being built. My neighborhood Virginia-Highland, borders a northeast stretch of the Beltline.

With the rise of the suburbs, people fled the urban street-scape to find their own piece of land away from it all. To avoid traffic on the street in front of their house, they avoided through streets and thus became dependent on arterial streets to get anywhere. This image shows most trips being made on high-speed and high-capacity roads and thus most likely in a car.

 

What is proposed is a return to the streets of older cities. This image shows a network of smaller streets that allow multiple paths and encourage lower speeds. These streets are more conducive to both pedestrian and bicycle travel.

 

Although there are more people -- and probably because there are more people -- the cars are not as threatening because they are forced to travel closer to people speed.

Another factor is the number of cars in a small area motivates drivers to leave their cars behind. Proximity to work, shopping, schools and restaurants -- in short, density -- makes it possible to ditch the car.