RESIDENTIAL STREET PATTERN FOR A SAFE AND

SECURE NEIGHBOURHOOD
(A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTANIS CITIES)

SUBMITTED BY:

HASSAN ALI

SUBMITTED TO:

Dr. ASGHAR NAEEM

SUBJECT:

PLANNING RESEARCH METHODS

URBAN & REGIONAL PLANNING,

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION
SCHOOL OF CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING (SCEE), NUST, H12,
ISLAMABAD

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION..........................................................1
1.1. PROBLEM STATEMENT..........................................................................1
1.1.1. INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH PROBLEM.......................................1
1.1.2. STUDIES ADDRESSING THE RESEARCH PROBLEM..........................2
1.1.3. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE................................................................2
1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY..................................................................3
1.3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.................................................................3
CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................4
2.1. REQUIREMENT OF LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................4
2.1.1. CHARACTERISTIC OF GOOD LITERATURE REVIEW..........................4
2.2. TYPES OF STREET PATTERNS................................................................4
2.3. PEDESTRIAN-VEHICLE COLLISIONS.......................................................6
CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.........................................9
3.1. SELECTION OF RESEARCH TOPIC..........................................................9
3.2. LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................10
3.3. DATA COLLECTION..............................................................................10
3.4. SAMPLE SIZE......................................................................................11
3.5. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE.......................................................................11
3.6. DATA ANALYSIS...................................................................................11
3.7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................11
3.8. THESIS COMPILATION.........................................................................11
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................ 12

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
1.1.

problem statement

Problem statement is

categorized

under

diverse sections

to clearly

differentiate between different components of the problem statement which

includes introduction to the research problem, deficiencies in the past
studies, the statement of the purpose and the importance of the study.

1.1.1.

introduction to research problem

Early planners in the United States relied upon the grid pattern to provide
spatial coherence to rapidly growing cities along the east coast, influenced in
part by urban design considerations borrowed from Europe and by land
reform in the post-Revolutionary United States (Wolfe, 1987) and the cities of
Pakistan is no exception. This street pattern organized the distribution of
urban land in order to simplify real estate speculation and rationalize the
transportation networks (Moudon & Untermann, 1987). During the last half
century, different street patterns are becoming popular other than the
gridiron pattern because of limited-access and ultimately they offer a clam,
peaceful and safe environment. (Southworth & Ben-Joseph, 1995) examined
nine Californian neighbourhoods and found that cul-de-sac streets performed
better than grid patterns in terms of perceived traffic safety, privacy, and
safety for play by the residents. This pattern was also popular with
developers not only because it sold well but also because the infrastructure
costs were significantly less than the traditional interconnected grid pattern
that could require up to 50% more road construction (Southworth & BenJoseph, 2003). Although developed to improve the social living environment,
this combination of cul-de-sac and loop streets also had the support of many
traffic engineers because of its traffic calming effects (Rifaat & Tay, 2009).

Gridiron pattern also prevail in the number of cities of Pakistan. Especially,

the capital city of Islamabad is also developed on gridiron pattern planned by
C.A. Doxiadis. It is generally observed the gridiron pattern provides
thoroughfare and uninterrupted flow of people and goods from one place to
another place in a secure and reliable manners but on other hand it is
vulnerable to the other users i.e. the pedestrians and cyclist because of fast
moving traffic especially in the residential areas. The need to adopt different
street pattern in the designing neighbourhood is because it provides limited
access to traffic and only people live there move there. Moreover, because of
terrorism and critical law & order situation it is the need of the hour to secure
the residential and main commercial areas from the act of terrorist activities.
The curvilinear and the combination cul-de-sacs and loops & lollipops streets
are adopted while planning new areas. The adoption of the said street
pattern is usually observed in the areas planned by the private developers /
housing schemes. The pattern not only provides beauty and aesthetics in the
environment but also lowers the development cost of the area. It also
discourages through traffic and improves the pedestrian safety.

1.1.2.

studies addressing the research problem

Studies in the past have been carried out by different professionals regarding
the effects and use of different street patterns. They have characterized that
the adoption of these pattern is not only widely held by the developers by
also reduce the infrastructure cost of development. In contrast, because the
inhabitants observed the streets innocuous, they might take part into
number of activities i.e. walking, skating, cycling and permitting the children
play by themselves in the neighbourhoods that might reimburse the
reduction in crash risks.

1.1.3.

statement of purpose

The study is exclusive in nature as previously the studies carried out in other
countries of world mostly in the Americans or Europeans countries by
selecting various indicators i.e. the road crashes, pedestrian safety,
development cost and health of people etc. and lot of other indicators but no
studies has been done so far while keeping in view the act of terrorism that
how will it affect the neighbourhoods. This study will help understand the
virtues of different patterns except the gridiron pattern also help in making
the neighbourhoods safe from any kind of security threats.
1.2.

objectives of the study

The study is carried out with the following objectives:

1.3.

To
To
To
To

make neighbourhood safe.

introduce different street pattern instead of current practices.
identify possible hurdles in adopting different patterns.
know the professional perception for adapting these pattern.

limitations of the study

The literature on the adaption of various street pattern in context of
Pakistan was not readily available. The literatures available in this
context are from various authors from abroad and they have studied

the American or European cities.

The collection of information and perspective from various planning
professionals /developers /general public was a hard nut to crack as
they were reluctant to adapt it as it not demanding in the market
moreover a lot of developers consider that the grid iron pattern is easy
to develop and give a great use of land in terms or saleable area which
is not right.

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.

requirement of literature review

The review of relevant literature is nearly always a standard chapter of a

thesis or dissertation. The review forms an important chapter in a thesis
where its purpose is to provide the background to and justification for the
research undertaken (Bruce, 1994).

1.1.4.

characteristic of good literature review

A good literature review requires knowledge of the use of indexes and

abstracts, the ability to conduct exhaustive bibliographic searches, ability to
organize the collected data meaningfully, describe, critique and relate each
source to the subject of the inquiry, and present the organized review
logically, and last, but by no means least, to correctly cite all sources
mentioned (Afolabi, 1992).
2.2.

types of street patterns

There are numerous methodologies have been adopted in the literature to

categorize the street pattern in an urban regions. Several approaches are
used in the literature to classify the street pattern in an urban area. One
common approach is based on the concept of macroscopic and microscopic
street networks developed by Marshall (2005). The Macro-level or Citywide
Street network distinguishes streets that are generally continuous over a
substantial portion of the city and probably service travel from one part of
the city to another and, in many cases, trips to or from the city. The Microlevel

or

Neighbourhood

Street

network

generally

serves

residential

neighbourhood travel because these streets are on routes that are not
continuous over a significant portion of the city. Marshall (2005) then
combines the four types of Citywide Street network types, (linear, tributary,
4

radial, and grid) with the two types of Neighbourhood Street network (tree
and grid) to describe the street hierarchy in a city (Marshall & Garrick, 2010,
2011).
Another common approach focuses directly on the overall street pattern in a
community instead of focusing on the different types of streets and then
combining the different types of streets to form a pattern. For example,
(Southworth

&

Ben-Joseph,

2003)classified

street

patterns

into

five

categories: gridiron, fragmented parallel, wrapped parallel, loops and

lollipops, and lollipops on a stick. Their classification is shown in Figure 1.
Since this approach forms the basis for the classification scheme adopted in
this study, a brief description of each will be presented.

Figure 1 Types of street patterns. Source: Southworth & Ben-Joseph (2003)

The grid pattern is a simple system of two series of parallel streets crossing
at right angles to form a pattern of rectangular blocks. This pattern has more
land devoted to streets, as well as more blocks, intersections and points of
access than the other four patterns. Although the grid pattern increases
infrastructure costs, it offers the shortest trip lengths and the largest number
of route choices. It also creates the most walkable neighbourhood
(Southworth & Owens, 1993).
The fragmented parallel pattern has blocks that are reconfigured into long,
narrow rectangles and L-shapes. Although this pattern has almost equal
street length as the grid, it reduces the number of blocks and access points

as well as interconnectivity and choice of routes. The movement from the

traditional grid to fragmented parallel pattern since the 1950s reveals the
diminishing value of pedestrian access and growing focus on automobiles
(Southworth & Owens, 1993).
The warped parallel pattern comprises curvy streets in long, narrow blocks, T
intersections and L corners. Relative to the fragmented parallel pattern, it
restricts the visual length of the street. The transition to an automobile
subdivision becomes more pronounced in this pattern, with significant
reductions in intersections, street lengths, blocks and access points
(Southworth & Owens, 1993).
The loops and lollipops pattern is characterized, by the presence of loops and
cul-de-sacs. Loops and lollipops, create a non-directional pattern of streets
that ,tend to loop back on themselves. Interconnection is limited to several
through streets not readily apparent in the plan. As this pattern has limited
route choices and few access points, it creates quiet streets that are
relatively safe for children. It also limits pedestrian access and increases auto
trips, but concentrates them on the few existing arterials (Southworth &
Owens, 1993).
The lollipop on a stick street pattern is formed by branching off dead end
culde- sacs from a few easily recognized through streets. It maximizes,
privacy

but

limits

intersections,

route

choices

and

access

points,

substantially. This limited access design maximizes the number of house lots
on short dead-end streets and hampers pedestrian movement to a great
extent (Southworth & Owens, 1993).
2.3.

Pedestrian-Vehicle Collisions

There are a lot of factors that contribute to motor vehicle accidents, which
include road design (design /operating speed, carriageway width, vertical
and horizontal alignment, etc.), traffic control (yield/stop sign, signals, etc.),

the characteristics of moving traffic (speed, volume, etc.), vehicle features

(dimensions, safety equipment, SRS air bags, etc.), social norms (transport
mode preferences, safety culture, etc.), traffic law enforcement (speed
camera checking, breath-testing, etc.) morphology of neighbourhood (urban
form, land use, easy approach to public transport, etc.), weather and
environmental factors (night, lighting, visibility, rain, snow, fog, etc.) and
behaviour of driver (fatigue, tailgating , speeding, impaired, etc.). Hence, it is
important to note that all empirical studies, by necessity, have only
examined a partial contribution of selected contributing factors.
Several studies, were found, in the literature where multiple risks factors
contributing to the frequency and/or severity of pedestrian crashes were
identified. For example, (Sze & Wong, 2007) evaluated the injury risk of
pedestrian casualties in traffic collisions and found that there was a
decreasing trend in pedestrian injury risk, after controlling for the influences
of demographic, road environment and other risk factors. In another study,
Tay et al. (2011) examined the factors contributing to the severity of
pedestrian-vehicle accidents in SouthKorea and found that relative to minor
crashes, fatal and serious crashes were associated with collisions involving
the following: heavy vehicles; drivers who were drunk, male or under the age
of 65; pedestrians who were over the age of 65; and pedestrians, who were
hit in the middle of the road, on high speed roads, in inclement weather
conditions, at night, on road links, in tunnels, on bridges, or on wider roads.
In terms of road geometric and traffic characteristics, Anderson et al. (1997)
observed that when the speed limit was reduced, the number of fatal
pedestrian collisions was also reduced. A strong relationship was also found
between collision severity and speed. Garder (2004) found that high speed
roadways and wide roads led to more collisions and that the focus of safety
improvement should be on arterials and major collectors. In addition,
Bowman et al. (1994) demonstrated that different types of medians had
different effects on pedestrian collisions because different road medians or
7

barriers had different abilities to block vehicle interactions in different

directions and provide safe refuge areas for pedestrians. With respect to
urban forms and land use, LaScala et al. (2000) observed that injuries in
pedestrian collisions were greater in the areas with higher population
density, annual average daily traffic (AADT), and number of cross-streets per
kilometre of roadway. In contrast, (Garber & Lienau, 1996) reported that the
fatality rates of pedestrian collisions in rural areas with lower population
density were higher than the fatality rates in urban areas. Similarly, (Zajac &
Ivan, 2003) found that pedestrian injury severity was higher in villages and
downtown

fringe

areas

than

downtown

and

low-to-medium

density

commercial areas. (Marshall & Garrick, 2011) found that denser street
networks with higher intersection counts per area were associated with fewer
crashes across all severity levels. Conversely, increased street connectivity
as well as additional travel lanes along the major streets correlated with
more crashes. However, (Marshall & Garrick, 2010) found that, the highest
risk of fatal or severe crashes occurred with very low street network density,
and safety outcomes improved as the intersection density increased.

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is a systematic way to solve a research problem
(Kumar, 2008). Research methodology is a general but a clearly defined
structure comprising of different steps that are carried out over a course of
time to address a specific research question and to reach logical conclusions
in the light of set objectives. The nature of the study and the objectives
which

are

the

main

driving

force

while

establishing

the

research

methodology.
The research methodology used in this research work comprises of following
steps:
3.1.

selection of research topic

The main starter for any research work is the topic or research question to be
answered. The selection of research question is governed by the interest of
the researcher as well as the prevailing situation in the society. The following
research questions are made that need to be answered while carrying out
the research which are as follow;

How can street pattern play effective role to make neighbourhood safe
and secure?

What are the usual street pattern followed in different parts of world?

Why different street patterns are not followed in Pakistan other than
grid iron pattern?

When the idea was shared with the project advisor, he helped me to narrow
down the focus of study from a much larger context. He advised me to
further dissect the research into various groups which ultimately will help in

selecting the precise and most relevant topic according to the need of the
hour. For this the broader topic is dissected into following sub topic as under;

Integrated neighbourhood design using different street pattern.

Improvement of neighbourhood security and safety in view of

prevailing threats to Pakistan.

Street Pattern according to topography

Street pattern considering the traffic movement

Pattern to ensure maximum safety from crime & traffic

This narrowing down of research topic also helped to put the study in
available knowledge and relate it to the local condition and make proposals.
3.2.

literature review

A literature review is an important feature of any research work. The purpose

is to provide the background and justification for the research undertaken
(Bruce, 1994). Literature review section also helps to demonstrate the
familiarity of a researcher with the existing knowledge in the field of
research.
Literature review was carried out extensively for the research work from
electronic journals, newspaper clippings, books, reports that were accessible.
The accessibility was a major issue during the exercise of the literature
review.
3.3.

data collection

Data collection is a fundamental component of a research thesis. Data

collection enables to answer a specific research question or to address a
hypothesis that has been developed to carry out a particular research. The

10

data collected for any research project is of two types i.e. primary data and
secondaey data.
3.4.

sample size

The sample size of that particular study will be selected will finalized after indepth discussion with the instructor that how much samples need to be
examined to justify my research.
3.5.

sampling technique

The sampling technique of simple random sampling will be used to look for
the

best

possible

respondent

among

the

variety

of

professionals

/developers / people.
3.6.

data analysis

The data collected from both primary and secondary sources will be analyzed
logically to deduce results. For this purpose, SPSS and other allied softwares
will be used. Table and graphs will be prepared in order to get maximum
information out of the studies carried out during data collection.
3.7.

conclusions and recommendations

Major inferences which are drawn from the whole study are documented
after the interpretation. Main parts of the study are summarized at the end in
the conclusion section. In the light of results, findings and conclusions
several recommendations have been made which can be applied to improve
the commercialization policy and economic benefits can be enhanced as a
result.
3.8.

thesis compilation

The whole thesis is compiled with the necessary information in a report form
and hence to disseminate the research work. Different parts of the thesis are

11

arranged in the form of chapters as well as annexure for other reference

information.

12

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Afolabi, M. (1992). The Review of Related Literature in Research .

International Journal of Information and Library Research, 4(1), 59-66.
Bruce, C. (1994). Research Student's Early Experiences of the Dissertation
Literature Review. Studies in Higher Education , 19(2), 217-229.
Garber, N., & Lienau, T. K. (1996). Traffic and Highway Geometric
Characteristics Associated with Pedestrian Crashes in Virginia. Report
VTRC

96-R29

(Charlottesville:

Virginia

Transportation

Research

Council).
Kumar, R. (2008). Research Methodology. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from
<http://books.google.com.pk/books?
id=7btTlFXBRnoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=research+methodology&h
l=en&ei=P9kQTratMsvDtAbP_vzgDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&
resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false >
Marshall, S. (2005). Streets and Pattern. New York: Spon Press.
Marshall, W., & Garrick, N. (2010). Street Network Types and Road Safety: A
Study of 24 Californian Cities. Urban Design International, 15, pp. 133
147.
Marshall, W., & Garrick, N. (2011). Does street network design affect traffic
safety? Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43(3), pp. 769781.
Moudon, A., & Untermann, R. (1987). Grids revisited, in: A. Moudon (Ed.)
Public Streets for Public Use. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Rifaat, S., & Tay, R. (2009). Effect of Street Pattern on Injury Risks in twovehicle Crashes. Transportation Research Record, Journal of the
Transportation Research Board, in Press.
13

Southworth, M., & Ben-Joseph, E. (1995). Streets Standards and the Shaping
of Suburbia. Journal of the American Planning Association, 61(1),65-81.
Southworth, M., & Ben-Joseph, E. (2003). Streets and The Shaping OF
Suburbia. Washington,DC: Island Press.
Southworth, M., & Ben-Joseph, E. (2003). Streets and the Shaping of Towns
and Cities. Washington DC: Island Press.
Southworth, M., & Owens, P. (1993). The Evolving Metropolis: Studies of
Community, Neighborhood, and Street Form at the Urban Edge. Journal
of the American Planning Association, Southworth, M. & Owens, P.
(1993) The evolving metropolis: studies of community, n59(3), pp.
271287.
Sze, N., & Wong, S. (2007). Diagnostic analysis of the logistic model for
pedestrian injury severity in traffic crashes. Accident Analysis &
Prevention, 39, pp. 12671278.
Tay, R., Choi, J., Kattan, L., & Khan, A. (2011). A multinomial logit model of
pedestrian-vehicle crash severity. International Journal of Sustainable
Transportation, 5(4), pp. 233249.
Wolfe, C. (1987). Streets Regulating Neighborhood Form: A Selective History,
Public Streets for Public Use. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zajac, S., & Ivan, J. (2003). Factors influencing injury severity of motor
vehicle-crossing pedestrian crashes in rural Connecticut. Accident
Analysis and Prevention, 35, pp. 369379.

14