| Generally, local governments and the department of transportation regulate roadway access, in their respective jurisdictions, in order to maintain efficient and safe traffic flow. When applying such regulations to a new development, considerations are given to safety, capacity of the roadway, economic impact, and the rights of property owners whose land abuts the development or pertinent roadways to the development. Roadway regulations can extend beyond the actual road surface to related areas such as curbs, medians, and sidewalks.
A threshold issue for a developer is obtaining approval for the proposed development, which is often conditioned on roadway access. Another issue a developer may confront is less-than-preferred access. In other words, there is access to the development but the developer may desire a different avenue of access that is unavailable due to applicable roadway regulations. When the development is of a commercial nature, the existence of an undesirable access can dampen business resulting in a development that is not economically viable.
There are four categories of roadways with the status of the roadway in a particular category dictating the regulatory treatment it will receive. A limited access road typically has few access points and is meant for long-distance, high-speed travel. Abutting property owners do not have an access easement to such a roadway, an example of which is an interstate freeway. Arterial roads, as the name suggests, are main thoroughfares that act as arteries through the body of a community. Speeds on arterial roads can reach forty to forty-five mph. Collector roads are used to connect local, which are essentially "neighborhood" streets, to arterial roads. Speeds on connector roads usually top out at thirty-five mph. Local roads service only individual properties. The size of the roadway is a good indicator of its position as a limited access, arterial, collector, or local road. Access controls range from prevalent at the limited access road level to very minimal at the local road level. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |