Road Diet

Road diets are narrowing or removing of travel lanes on a multilane road usually without changing the curb to curb width.  The intent of road diets is to reduce the number of lanes pedestrians must cross and thus decrease the complexity of the crossing environment.  Road diets have many other benefits as well however; caution should be taken when contemplating a road diet since conducting a diet removes capacity and may result in longer cue lengths.  Road diets may also require adjusting of signal heads, signs and detection loops. 

Photo courtesy of FHWA