Integrating Pedestrian Planning into Roadway Designs
Ogden Grand Avenue Promenade
Active transportation is becoming increasingly more common in today’s roadway designs. For many years it was commonly overlooked in roadway designs. Today, civil engineers must consider pedestrian planning and design, that factors in mobility options for walking, biking, and other non-motorized forms of transportation. Many of CRS transportation team designs have included an active transportation component, which has been a crucial piece of the design.
Our Transportation Team:
At CRS, our talented and innovative transportation team is led by Vice President, John Bale, PE, FDBIA, who boasts over 35 years of experience managing large civil and transportation projects. Our team excels in providing innovative roadway and traffic solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of each client and community. Incorporating effective active transportation into a diverse range of roadways is a common challenge our team successfully accomplishes. Our success comes from analyzing various options to identify what best fits the community’s needs while meeting the project’s goals.
What is Active Transportation:
Active transportation, according to Heal Utah, is any way a person can transport themselves using the body (walk, bike, skateboard, etc.). Active transportation plays a vital role in a design because it helps the engineers shift their focus to take a systematic approach to prioritizing pedestrians in the same way they would vehicles.
How CRS has incorporated Active Transportation into its designs:
When our engineers design a road, they need to keep in mind how to keep pedestrians safe when using or crossing the facility and allow for direct and convenient connection with everyday destinations Some of the components we take into consideration in our designs are:
- Bridge or tunnel for crossings
- Multi-use trail connections
- Cycling infrastructure
- Traffic calming measures
- Intersection design
- Community feedback through public involvement
Ogden Grand Avenue Promenade
CRS Active Transportation Projects
In 2013, we worked on the award-winning Ogden Grant Avenue Promenade, which was recognized by the American Council of Engineering Companies(ACEC) of Utah for its innovative active transportation design with pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and bikeways. The project’s design phase called for the complete roadway redesign to include separated bike lanes, pedestrian lanes, and raised medians. We continued to expand the project working on Phase II of this project in 2016. During this phase we added 12 ft. sidewalks and seven ft. bike lanes on each side of 24th Street to Historic 25th Street and 20th to 18th Street.
Other cities in Utah, such as Payson and Vernal, have also been updating their downtown areas with an emphasis on adopting more active transportation on their roads. Payson City is working to revive its downtown area while modernizing its infrastructure. This project aims to provide a plan and design to invigorate their downtown with pedestrian traffic and new businesses. Vernal, known as Dinosaur City, also wanted to adopt streets that would be more attractive for tourism and for its residents to have walking accessibility to dining and shopping in their downtown. To enhance safety and promote pedestrian-friendly environments, both projects included narrowing the roads to implement traffic calming measures and concurrently expanding the pedestrian portion of the project.
Lastly, in late 2020, CRS was selected to create a design with transit, active transportation, and roadway elements for the Clearfield UTA Frontrunner Station, which is part of the Clearfield Transit Oriented Development (TOD) project. According to Clearfield City, “Not only will the FrontRunner Train connect Clearfield residents to the rest of the Wasatch Front, but the development of this site has the potential to be a vibrant hub of activity and excitement that connects Clearfield residents to each other.”
At CRS, we are not just designing transportation solutions but crafting vibrant pathways that empower communities to a healthier and more connected future. Embracing active transportation in many of our projects, we cultivate pedestrian-friendly environments where people stand at the core of every design.
For more information, contact John Bale at john.bale@crsengineers.com
