Understanding the impacts of integrating New Urbanist neighborhood and street design ideals with conventional traffic engineering standards: the case of Stapleton

This research considers the implications of building places that possess many of the qualities that make New Urbanism so desirable but also marginalizing them with other qualities that prioritize automobility to meet the demands of conventional traffic engineering standards. By examining the existing built environment of Stapleton - a New Urbanist development in Denver, Colorado - in terms of street network characteristics, street designs, and intersection designs, I investigate the inconsistencies of the resulting built environment with respect to the latest research and state-of-the-practice New Urbanism design ideals. The outcomes are then considered in terms of how people actually use the transportation system by way of vehicle speed studies and travel diaries. The trends suggest that mixing New Urbanist neighborhood and street design characteristics with conventional traffic engineering standards results in travel behaviors more consistent with conventional auto-oriented developments.