How to Road Diet Cheaply and Easily

A fan of the narrow streets in the older neighborhood near his home but not a fan of the wide expanse of asphalt in front it, San Diego land use attorney Bill Adams ponders the benefits of narrow streets, and brainstorms a way to transform existing suburban wide streets to narrow streets - a way that might be technically, politically, and economically feasible. His solution: give away the excess road. 

"Little attention has been given to street slimming retrofits of  suburban residential streets.   While safety is  equally, if not more, imperative in such streets, it has more to do with children than bicycles.  The lack of density along residential streets and the vastness of the suburban road network make public expenditures to accomplish such road diets daunting and impractical."

"But what if the excess street land was simply given to the adjacent property owners? Wouldn’t these property owners be motivated to improve their newly annexed property?"