Salt Lake City Neighborhood Byways

Project update (May 19, 2023) – We need your feedback! The Kensington Neighborhood Byway draft design is now available and we would love to hear what you think. Please visit our interactive map to provide comments and sign up for our email newsletter to stay updated on these projects.

What is a Neighborhood Byway?

Neighborhood Byways create pleasant and convenient routes for people using active modes of transportation by encouraging safe travel speeds, discouraging cut-through vehicle traffic, providing safe crossings of busy streets, and connecting people to destinations.

Few changes are needed on the quiet streets themselves; the network is realized by providing for safe, often signalized crossings at the major barrier streets, and reducing traffic volumes to make walking safer and more enjoyable. “Neighborhood byways” is a term recognizing that these corridors create a network for both pedestrians and bicyclists.

Street characteristics that make an ideal neighborhood byway:

Low traffic volumes

Low speeds – narrow streets and other characteristics that make driving fast in a vehicle feel uncomfortable

Direct connections between neighborhood destinations

Greening along the route – for example, street trees that provide shade

Improvements that make a street a neighborhood byway include bicycle and pedestrian crossing improvements (signals, crosswalks, curb extensions aka bulb-outs, curb ramps, signage, street markings, and other traffic calming techniques), way-finding signage, and connectivity enhancements to existing bicycle and pedestrian routes.