Curbside Management Design Strategies (Coming Soon)

Redefine parking lanes as flex zones: The City of Seattle pioneered the use of “flex zones,” or multi-use zones along the curb whose purpose changes based on the surrounding land use. Flex zones can be used for commercial deliveries, parklets, [metered] on-street parking, and taxi zones and can address mobility needs during specific times of the day, week and year. Other uses for flex zones include accessible loading/paratransit, bus stops, food trucks, and passenger pick-up/drop-off (PUDO) points.

Micromobility parking: With the rise of shared micromobility, the curb has become a location to park and charge bicycles and e-scooters. Micromobility corrals (located on-street, off-curb, and behind STOP signs) can improve visibility for motorists and create safe spaces for e-scooters to park that will not become an obstacle for pedestrians. Similar to vegetated barriers and transit islands, micromobility corrals can be strategically located to protect bike-designated and scooter-designated lanes.

Mobility hub considerations: Mobility hubs incorporate physical, programmatic, and technological elements to create a hub where multiple transportation offerings exist in one place. Design considerations for mobility hubs include geofencing parameters (which can limit or expand access of emergent mobility technologies), multimodal parking, security, and storage: all while cultivating a sense of place. More information on Mobility Hubs design and elements to consider can be found on our What to Do Design Mobility Hubs and Mobility Hub Elements pages.

Repurpose on-street parking: The need for on-street parking will likely decrease when AVs arrive on our streets. This gives planners, designers, city officials, and invested stakeholders an opportunity to redesign our streets to make them more functional. Repurposed on-street parking can result in the implementation of bike lanes, bus stops, food trucks, loading zones, paratransit amenities, pick-up and drop-off spaces for AVs & TNCs, transit-only lanes, and other flex zone amenities. Additionally, reduced on-street parking along the curb will likely reduce traffic bottlenecking and congestion.

Impacts of COVID-19 on Curb Management: In the wake and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across the nation and around the globe began to adopt tactical approaches to urbanscapes, including transformations of streets, on-street parking and curbside spaces. For curbside management, this raises the question of what on-street installations, transitional amenities and less-temporary parklets might add to the mix. More importantly, cities are beginning to contemplate how designers, municipal officials, and planners can leverage the recent rediscovery of streets as public space in the short and long-term post-pandemic period.