I am going to have some roads on my new layout. Not major roads, but ordinary edge-of-town streets. Can anyone help with the 'normal' width of these streets and sidewalks? Also I would like a short section where the trains go down the middle of a street, would that street be wider, to allow traffic to pass either side, or maybe park alongside kerbs? Any hints would be appreciated
My 2 lane roads/streets with out parking lanes are roughly 22 N scale feet wide (1 3/4 ").For parking lanes (on both sides of the street) I would add at least another 18' to the total width.For middle of the street rail running with parking make the streets at least 20" wide.Without parking the lanes could be 12' wide .If the tracks are right in the pavement I would make the lanes 12' wide measureing from the railhead out on each side. This is just my take on the subject and how I would/will do it.I'm sure you will get plenty of ideas from the rest of the group. Here are two pics of two of my streets [ 16. February 2003, 21:46: Message edited by: Catt ]
Thanks for the tips mate Any preferences on how to make the road surfaces? (Never had any roads on the last layout)
Alan, Most US roads are constructed so that each lane is 11 feet wide. So a two lane road would be 22 feet wide, a 4 lane would be 44 feet and so on. Hope that helps
The standard US lane width is 12', curb and gutters 2' to 2'10", residential sidewalks are 4' and commercial sidewalks are 6' to 10'. Cities will cut corners for monetary reasons and use smaller lane widths ie. 11' but not usually on new construction where there is federal or state funds. They will do things like taking an existing 4 lane street (48' wide) and striping it for four 10' lanes and a center left turn lane of only 8'. If you are modeling the past, lanes were built as narrow as 9' as late as the early '50's. And country roads and small towns still have roads that are barely wide enough for twoway auto traffic and are not wide enough for trucks to pass.
Alan,my streets are made from .060 stytrene (plasticard?)The thickness is overkill but for what I'm paying for it ($1.00 for a piece 14" wide by 40" long) I can afford to over do it. By the way my sidewalks are 5' wide not counting the curbing. [ 17. February 2003, 23:01: Message edited by: Catt ]
