Over there in Europe, we have mixed approach which IMO is great
- Highways (including city bypasses etc highway-like roads, not only posted highways) are plenty wide. Like, dual-carriage can easily fit 3 or even 4 trucks next to each other.
- Major fast traffic city streets (no pedestrians, good visibility, preferably crossings are 2-level or controlled) Are wide-ish to drive comfortably, 3 trucks could barely fit on dual-carriage, but 3 cars - easily
- City streets (pedestrians highly possible, cars coming in/out of drives, no speed-up/slow-down lanes, uncontrolled crossings) are just wide enough to drive comfortable at 50km/h. May have speed control features.
- Residential streets. Narrow streets. Parked cars on the sides. Driving at > 30km/h is not comfortable. 2 trucks could hardly pass. Lots of speed control features.
In addition to that, we usually have traffic features that warn of upcoming speed limit. For example, small towns frequently got an artificial S turn or shallow speed bump-. You can easily pass it at 50-ish km/h. Sometimes it's possible at 30 or 70. Which is usually the speed limit for upcoming stretch of the road.
I love this approach. The road itself should tell it's limit. Safe-looking roads that are actually not safe suck. Point in case, we recently had some 2-wide-lanes-one-way streets converted to 2-narrow-lanes + bus lane. I was sceptical at first, but in general traffic calmed down, less assholes, less speeding.
This approach sucks if there're no enough highway(-ish) roads and bypasses though. It's a torture to do a long drive through small cities. On the other hand, it's safer to residents of those cities if people passing through don't speed 2x the limit..
- Highways (including city bypasses etc highway-like roads, not only posted highways) are plenty wide. Like, dual-carriage can easily fit 3 or even 4 trucks next to each other.
- Major fast traffic city streets (no pedestrians, good visibility, preferably crossings are 2-level or controlled) Are wide-ish to drive comfortably, 3 trucks could barely fit on dual-carriage, but 3 cars - easily
- City streets (pedestrians highly possible, cars coming in/out of drives, no speed-up/slow-down lanes, uncontrolled crossings) are just wide enough to drive comfortable at 50km/h. May have speed control features.
- Residential streets. Narrow streets. Parked cars on the sides. Driving at > 30km/h is not comfortable. 2 trucks could hardly pass. Lots of speed control features.
In addition to that, we usually have traffic features that warn of upcoming speed limit. For example, small towns frequently got an artificial S turn or shallow speed bump-. You can easily pass it at 50-ish km/h. Sometimes it's possible at 30 or 70. Which is usually the speed limit for upcoming stretch of the road.
I love this approach. The road itself should tell it's limit. Safe-looking roads that are actually not safe suck. Point in case, we recently had some 2-wide-lanes-one-way streets converted to 2-narrow-lanes + bus lane. I was sceptical at first, but in general traffic calmed down, less assholes, less speeding.
This approach sucks if there're no enough highway(-ish) roads and bypasses though. It's a torture to do a long drive through small cities. On the other hand, it's safer to residents of those cities if people passing through don't speed 2x the limit..