Street Network

Land transportation is the most common mode of transportation. For this reason,
people usually travel on roads. Street network or road network refers to the system
of streets and roads within a given area to accommodate vehicles and pedestrians. It
is important in building communities as it both shapes and responds to the natural
and built environment (Broward Complete Street Guidelines, n.d.). Good street
network designs reduce land consumption, provide greater accessibility through
more direct routes, and increase overall network efficiency and reliability (Congress
for the New Urbanism, n.d.).

Figure 1. Types of Street Network System (The Geography of Transport Systems, n.d.)

Road transportation has its advantages. The cost of vehicle is significantly lower compared to
those of other mode of transport like ships and airplanes. For this reason, more individuals
are capable of purchasing vehicles. For commuters, another advantage of road transportation
is the point-to-point capability of public vehicles like buses and taxis. System of roads/streets
also offer the motorists flexible routes for convenience. Although there are many advantages
that road networks provide, there are also some disadvantages or rather challenges that
should be addressed. Some of these challenges include the following:

It is characterized as the lack of capacity of a

Traffic Congestion road to accommodate vehicles efficiently at
a specific time.
Unavailability of appropriate parking spaces
Lack of Parking Spaces often leads to irresponsible parking of
motorists.
Several factors that may lead to accidents
Accidents include poor road design, lack of signages,
and careless driving.
Traffic Congestion

Traffic congestion is a
common problem in transportation. It
is characterized as the lack of capacity
of a road to accommodate vehicles
efficiently at a specific time. It is
particularly linked with motorization
and the diffusion of the automobile,
which has increased the demand for
transport infrastructures (Rodrigue,
n.d.). It can be recurring or non-
recurring depending on the
Figure 2. (Her Culture, 2021)
nature of its cause.

The significant increase in the number of vehicles on the road every year results
in recurring traffic congestion. Roads get occupied easily by vehicles especially during
rush hours and holidays. These vehicles may be privately owned and public vehicles
like buses and taxis. Although the volume of traffic is the most common cause of
congestion, other factors may also contribute to this. Utility works such as repair and
maintenance of roads often result in closing some portions of roads to motorists,
causing the traffic to be diverted and congested to another route. Accidents also cause
traffic congestion when vehicles need to temporarily halt or change the route to make
way for emergency vehicles. Sometimes, just the careless adjustments done by drivers
like slowing down, speeding up, or taking U-turns affect the flow of traffic behind them.

There are several ways to

mitigate traffic congestion. One way is
to increase the capacity of roads to
accommodate more vehicles. This is
usually done by road widening or
constructing additional lanes.
However, this method is rather costly.
It also only increases the demand for
vehicles which causes motorists to
change routes to take advantage of the
new lanes. Instead of new lanes,
constructing new roads to provide
Figure 3. (Joseph McCormick Construction, n.d.)
alternative routes can also help. Providing an entirely new road divides the initial
volume of traffic that flows on an existing road and diverts it to another route that
traverses other areas but leads to the same destination. However, similar to
constructing additional lanes, this method is also expensive and requires a lot of work.

One solution to ease the flow of

traffic on the road is to use a coordinated
traffic signal system. This is a method of
timing groups of traffic signals along an
arterial to provide for the smooth
movement of traffic with minimal stops (The
City of Lake Forest, n.d.). In this system,
wherever the busiest traffic movements are
given priority. This makes sense because
some streets have little to no traffic at all
Figure 4. (Getty Images, 2020)
while some are heavily congested. This
method saves a lot of waiting time on stoplights and also considers the volume of traffic
flow. Among the many methods of mitigating traffic congestion, this method is
inexpensive and can be executed easily.

Another solution is to put up a traffic management center that constantly

monitors traffic, intersection, and roads. This is helpful especially in monitoring the
road for any unwanted events like vehicular accidents that may result in traffic jams.
Knowing where such events occur can help in deploying the appropriate authorities to
assist, clear out the affected road, and divert the traffic efficiently. This method may
require a significant amount of funds but having such to monitor the road situation will
be beneficial.

Lastly, one solution that can also

help in mitigating traffic congestion is to
include dedicated intersection turn lanes
on the design of roads. Traffic can easily
jam because of slight adjustments of cars
like switching lanes or making U-turns.
For this reason, it is ideal to have an
intersection turn lane where cars that will
make a U-turn can use so that they won’t
drastically affect the flow of traffic
Figure 5. (Transportation Engineering Agency, n.d.)
behind them.
Through this, the flow of traffic won’t be disrupted much. Also, an estimated 25%
increase in capacity for roadways that added left-turn lanes was observed. This method,
however, similar to road widening, is costly and requires a lot of work.

Other solutions that the motorists themselves can do to lessen the traffic include
avoiding using vehicles for short-distance travels that can be reached by walking or
cycling. Cars take up too much space on the road so it will save much space if people
travel to their desired destinations by walking or cycling, if possible. Not only does it
help in lessening the traffic but engaging in more physical activity is also good for the
health. In addition, motorists can also do carpooling whenever possible. Carpooling
lessens traffic because it allows two or more people to use one vehicle to reach their
respective destinations instead of using their cars. Aside from lessening the traffic, it
also saves them fuel and time.

Lack of Parking Spaces

A parking space is a paved or

unpaved location intended for
parking of vehicles. It can be private
like a garage, or public on streets
delineated by road surface markings.
Parking is one of the major
transportation problems in urban
areas. The imbalance in parking
supply and demand is attributed to
the significant increase in car
ownership and lack of parking space.
This imbalance may be a result of
ineffective land use planning and
miscalculations of space
requirements during first stages of
planning (Ibrahim, 2018). Lack of
Figure 6. (Propmodo, 2020)
parking space often results to other
transportation problems like
irresponsible parking and traffic
congestion.
 One of the solutions to
shortage in parking spaces is to
increase the parking supply. One
way to achieve this is to increase
the on-street or curb parking by
designing streets with dedicated
parking lanes and minimizing the
restrictions for on-street parking.
This may provide the most
parking supply especially in
commercial areas where traffic is
mostly concentrated. Although
this method is convenient and
cost-efficient, it is limited to the Figure 7. (sdnews.com, 2010)
amount of space that can be
provided within a specific area.

Figure 8. (Infrastructure Magazine, 2018)
Another method is to
construct off-street parking
facilities. These can either be
private or public. A private
parking facility is owned by a
private entity like a business that
may be used by the public or
may be exclusive for its
customers, employees, clients,
or residents. Public parking
facility, on the other hand, is
owned and managed by the
local government and is
available to the public. Although
it will increase the supply of
parking space significantly, it
tends to be costly. It also takes a
while to be implemented as it
needs extensive planning and
construction usually takes years.
 Sharing parking facilities can
also help in maximizing the availability
of parking spaces. This method
encourages different businesses
within a specific area to share their
available parking spaces to take
advantage of their peak
periods/hours. This utilizes
unoccupied parking spaces of
businesses that aren’t on their peak
hours. This method can also be
modified into mixed-use parking
wherein establishments, institutions,
etc. share parking depending on their
peak parking demands. This solution is
inexpensive and convenient; however, Figure 9. (Tripadvisor, 2017)
the terms and conditions of sharing
should be clear and agreed upon
between the involved parties.

Advancements in technology can

Figure 10. (Shutterstock, n.d.)
also provide solutions to parking
problems by utilizing smart parking
systems. This system will allow real-time
data about the parking availability within a
specific area using the internet and sensor
technology (Tomorrow City, 2021). Smart
detectors like LiDAR sensors detect
whether a parking space is free or
occupied and identify if a parking facility is
full. This method makes parking efficient
as it saves time allotted for searching for
parking spaces by directly giving
information about the availability of
parking spaces. Although it does not solve
the problem with the shortage of parking
spaces, it still helps the drivers by
minimizing the time spent while searching
for available parking spaces.