Many people agree that the most comfortable places to walk or ride a bike are on pathways and low-volume roadways such as residential streets. While a lot of transportation planning focuses on mitigating the challenges found when travelling on major roadways, close examination of the local street network can reveal hidden connections that can greatly increase the options available to pedestrians and bicyclists.
Lanids Evans + Partners, formerly Sprinkle Consulting, helps federal, state, regional and local agencies develop wayfinding systems that guide bicyclists and pedestrians via the most convenient and comfortable routes to the destinations that are important to their everyday lives, quickly opening up opportunities for active living that improve the quality of life enjoyed by local residents.
There are often opportunities for circulation within a community by biking or walking that are not well known to the public at large, because many people’s route choices are based on how and where they drive. Interconnections via residential streets, and across publicly controlled property such as parks and utility corridors, can be optimized to provide route choices for nonmotorized travel away from congested roadways with high speed traffic.
Our staff are very experienced in soliciting input from local residents that reveal where the best connections are that may not be widely known. Once these opportunities are identified, we take to the field to verify the status of the routes and carefully select those which will serve access to important community destinations. Often a network of preferred local routes can be identified that consists largely of existing low-volume roadways and can be recommended for designation via wayfinding signs with minimal capital investment to modify the infrastructure.
We can also recommend wayfinding sign protocols which comply with national standards (MUTCD) for guide signs, while also customized with elements of community or trail system branding. Landis Evan’s wayfinding expertise has been recognized by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) through our selection to develop the guide sign protocol for the U.S. Bike Route system.