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School Street

LOC-SCH-11
Recommended Local

School Street

A Local street adjacent to a school that restricts or excludes vehicle traffic during arrival and dismissal, then reverts to normal Local operation the rest of the day.

Related Media

The items below come from outside the Commonway System, external videos, podcasts, and articles related to this page's topic, not part of the guidebook itself.

Aligned

Let's FIX the HIGH SCHOOL (with 152 ROUNDABOUTS!)

Road Guy Rob

The origin story of Carmel's roundabout program, starting with a contentious school-zone traffic-calming project, and the engineering fix (tightened entries, fatter center island) that made the design work.

Typical at: Compact Urban Core

Suburban is an edge case. Undeveloped and Rural are unlikely pairings, where schools are typically set back with dedicated drop-off lots rather than fronting a closable street.

Speed and modal hierarchy

Design speed & speed limit

[SPEED LIMIT 20]
Vehicle access is restricted or excluded during arrival and dismissal. Outside of active hours, the Local default applies: 20 mph hard maximum, no exceptions.

See Design Speed & Speed Limits.

Modal hierarchy

During active hours:
Pedestrian> Bicycle
Off-hours:
Pedestrian> Bicycle> Transit> Vehicle> Freight
This pattern carries two separate modal hierarchies depending on time of day, not one: full pedestrian/bicycle exclusivity during arrival and dismissal, the Local base order the rest of the time.

Design notes

This Typology and Festival Street share the same schedule-based structure, full closure or restriction during a defined window, base operation otherwise. Both were added to the system after a NACTO gap-check identified time-restricted street patterns not otherwise covered by the core Local set.1

Festival Street (LOC-FES-08) (shares this pattern's schedule-based structure, per both pages' Design notes)

References

  1. Evidence-based Gellatly, R. and Marner, B., "Air Quality Monitoring Study: London School Streets," 2021.