What to do with unkerbed urban arterial roads.

Some limited research has been undertaken in Australia and in the United States of America on the safety and operational impacts of various access management treatments on kerbed and unkerbed divided and undivided arterial roads, including narrow and wide kerbed medians, painted medians, dedicated right turn lanes and wide painted edge lines. This research provides some guidance on treating roads based on traffic volume and access density and abutting land use. Building on this knowledge and a flood of resident and local government complaints, the authors were engaged in 2000 by Transport SA in South Australia to: investigate deficiencies and problems on eight unkerbed arterial roads in the Adelaide metropolitan area; develop a range of generic solutions and a users guide for wider application by road maintenance personnel in treating unkerbed urban arterial roads; develop specific treatment schemes for the eight sample roads; and develop a strategy for investigating and treating the remaining forty-two unkerbed urban arterial roads in metropolitan Adelaide. The investigation and resultant strategy report resulted in two of the sample roads being given high priority for treatment by the South Australian Minister for Transport. This paper focuses on the research history of some access management treatments proposed by the authors and provides a procedural guide to solving a range of access, safety, drainage, amenity and environmental problems on unkerbed urban arterial roads. It also provides three case studies to validate the process developed by the authors. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E205914.