Hey all
I’ve seen plenty of books and articles on how to make streets, roads and sidewalks look real, but have never seen anything on how wide to make streets, roads and sidewalks. Anyone know of any articles, internet, magazine or book, that detail such things? Country roads for example are probably narrower than streets in the town…how wide are the parking spaces in front of the stores? Are sidewalks wide enough for two scale figures to walk side by side?
Thanks
John
A few issues back of Model Railroader,2-3, there was an article in which the author mentioned twenty five feet. This was for a county highway. Also in one of the Kalmbach books for beginners there was an article and again the distance was around 24-25 ft. This was for two lanes, one in each direction.
I Guarantee you will get many responses that contain questions in them about what era? location? etc. Well I will tell you how I did mine all the same width. I used a piece of 2x4 block of wood taped two pencils to it and drew my roads on the wood. So it was about 3.75 inches wide since we all know that 2x4 wood is never the exact size they label it as. That became the standard width for my layout. I surely did not need to be at the exact scale foot. It looked good and prototypical so I am happy with it. my layout is modern by the way.
In the City: A “standard” travel lane is 12 feet wide, parking lane 8 feet wide. Residential sidewalk 3-4 feet, commercial sidewalks wider, !0 feet probably not uncommon.
Rural: 12 foot travel lanes, shoulders 0-8 feet.
The minimum travel lane width that would normally be striped is 9 feet.
Best to use the above as a general guide, and base the dimensions you use on the look you are trying to achieve. Look to the prototype.
Good points. I should have included that. Era…late 50’s to mid 60’s location…well my layout is freelanced. Not really based anywhere specific but I’m modeling ACL in the early 60’s so I would say south…
I’m looking for 3 things really.
suggested width of street in town to include sidewalks.
suggested width of street in town without sidewalks
suggested width of country roads…paved
Sidewalks and streets
Rural: Modern “Standard” traffic lane width is 12 feet per lane. There should be some kind of paved shoulder also. 2’ is considered minimal shoulder (8’ preferred) making the actual pavement width 28’ to 40’ for a two lane road. Of course real roads may be narrower or wider. I was told once (by a Traffic Engineer) that a road less than 18’ wide pavement (two 9’ lanes) should not have a centerline stripe because that width its too narrow to be considered two lanes. In addition to the pavement there should be a gravel shoulder (2’ "standard minimum). On real roads 0’ to whatever.
Urban: 12’ lanes, 8’ shoulders (parking lanes) 1’ curb and gutter, 6’ sidewalks downtown, 3’ sidewalks in residential areas. In many old towns, the residential areas have a planting strip between the curb and the sidewalk. The planting strip is paved with concrete in the business area. Actual widths may be different. Some cities have 10’ or wider sidewalks downtown.
One old town I know about had a two lane (36’ - 40’ wide pavement) main business street with 8’ (including curb and gutter) concrete sidewalks. In the old residential area the streets were (I’m guessing) 18’ pavement , 8’ gravel shoulders , 1’ curb and gutter, 3’ planting area for trees and grass and 3’ concrete sidewalks.
The best thing to do is look at the area you are modeling. It is usually better to model street and roads a little narrow so that they don’t overwhelm the scene. Say 9’ lanes, 6’ shoulders or parking lanes, 3-4’ sidewalks. Most of the building we uses are small prototypes and/or compressed. Scale streets and roads look too big. Also there are many real locations with narrow streets and roads. Take a couple vehicles in your scale and see what looks right to
You can look up all the real world measurements you want, but when you transfer them to you layout, you probably won’t think they look right or have enough room. I think roads look better with a little artistic license.