LAND SUBDIVISION 285 



with before the road can be accepted by the municipality. It has often 

 been the case in the past that a rigid enforcement of the letter of these 

 laws, particularly of some regulations specifying a definite proportion 

 between the width of the traveled way and the total width of the res- 

 ervation, has imposed an unnecessary burden upon the owners and 

 resulted in a poorer development than the owners would otherwise have 

 constructed. 



The width of the public right-of-way from lot-front to lot-front Roadways and 

 should not be too much diminished, because it gives not only room to \Jf^^^^^ 

 traffic, but light, air, and sufficient setting for the buildings. The width 

 of the actual traveled roadway, however, in a street which carries only 

 the local residential traffic of one block, need give at the most only space 

 for one vehicle to stand and two to pass, and often room for two vehicles 

 to pass — sixteen feet — is sufficient for all practical purposes and better 

 than more, if the blocks are short and the street intersections allow of 

 easy turning of automobiles. The rest of the space from front-line to 

 front-line of abutting properties may then contain besides the sidewalks 

 a considerable planting strip between the sidewalks and the road. This 

 planting strip may contain not only trees but perhaps shrubs serving as 

 further decoration and cutting off the noise and dust of the roadways 

 from the adjoining properties. Where there is considerable difference 

 between the level of the road and that of the adjoining land, this differ- 

 ence may be taken up wholly or In part In the planting strip, and the 

 cost of grading of the street and of the private entrance roads may be 

 thereby made much less than If the sidewalks were put everywhere 

 mechanically In the same relation to the crown of the road. If the 

 traveled way must at some future time be increased in width, the 

 planting strip may be at the beginning so graded and the trees so set 

 out that this change may be later made without disturbance of side- 

 walk or planting. 



The sidewalks are usually better next the property line rather than Sidewalks 

 next the road, both for convenience and economy and for appearance' 

 sake. Like the roads, the sidewalks should be built no wider than the 

 traffic requires. Room for two people to walk abreast or for two people 

 to pass — say, four feet — is enough on a street which has only a few 

 lots abutting upon it. On streets where the foot traffic is very light 



