Our Streets Shape Bend–Street Standards Shape Our Streets!
Our streets control many aspects of our lives… the speed at which people drive, how easy it is to cross the street, and how easy it is to walk or bike to our destinations. Street standards control how new streets are built and how old streets are reconfigured when they are rebuilt. They control whether pavement fills the right-of-way or if there is room for trees.
Before cars became common in the early 1900’s there were few standards for building streets and roads. As cars became common and more roads were paved so cars could travel faster, crashes resulting in injuries and deaths increased. In response, engineers started standardizing the way roads were built. Standards were first developed for highways–and the intent was always to move lots of cars fast. Wide lanes and gradual curves were the hallmarks of these standards and they worked well for high speed travel because they gave drivers a chance to recover from small mistakes instead of running off the road.
Because they worked well for highways, they were gradually adopted for city streets as well. But in cities with lots of traffic and intersections and complexity, highway standards don’t work very well. A twelve foot wide lane on a highway allows people to drive fast, safely. That same twelve foot lane in a city encourages people to drive fast on city streets–until someone crosses the street or turns unexpectedly and there is no time to react. Until recently, Bend’s street standards called for major streets to have twelve foot lanes, the same lane width as high speed interstate highways. That’s why many of our streets that haven’t been rebuilt recently still have twelve foot lanes. It is one reason why many people drive too fast in town and why it is terrifying to try to cross these streets on foot or bike.
City streets built to highway standards make it very difficult for people walking and biking to get around. As traffic deaths have increased, people have started demanding safer streets and walkable neighborhoods. New standards specifically for city streets have been developed. The most commonly used are those from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). They have been approved for use by the federal government on federally funded projects and by the State of Oregon for use by cities. Instead of developing standards specifically for Bend, the city could adopt this guidance.
Street standards are not the only city regulations that need to change so that our transportation system can improve over time. While the street standards determine what streets look like when the city decides to build a street, the Growth Management Plan, the Transportation System Plan, and the Development Code all help describe where and what type of roads get built and how they fit together into a network. Parts or all of these other regulations will be changing over the next few years and we’ll be letting you know about them. At the moment, our street standards are being revised. To let the city know how you think the street standards should change, see our call to action for January of 2026.