Under a City of Avondale general engineering on-call contract, B&N worked with the City to design traffic calming improvements in the Garden Lakes community. Garden Lakes includes houses, parks, an elementary school and a high school. Many children in the community walk or ride their bikes to school. The existing 1.2-mile corridor had two 5-foot bike lanes, two 20-foot travel lanes and a 14-foot two-way left-turn lane. The wide vehicle lanes encouraged higher speeds; while the posted speed limit is 25 mph, the average speed in the corridor was 45 mph.
B&N designed improvements to encourage slower speeds and increase bicycle and pedestrian safety. These designs were installed during scheduled pavement preservation projects to save on construction costs. Improvements include reducing vehicle lane widths, providing dedicated bicycle and pedestrian travel areas, and implementing a striped buffer area between the vehicle lanes and bicycle and pedestrian lanes. The project supports the school district’s Safe Routes to School plan, City Council goals to enhance public roadways to incorporate multi-modal opportunities, the transportation plan to create a multi-modal network, and the municipal sustainability plan to improve air quality.