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Click on the title, Road Diets: Making Streets Slim Down Is Good For Pedestrians, Businesses And Even Traffic, to access the resource described, below.

SCUP headquarters is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the city is engaged in changing some downtown streets, using bulb-outs. From our first-hand experience with one of the streets - before, during, and after the change - this really works.

When a road diet is applied to a road with at least four lanes overall, it often removes one lane in each direction. The space made available by eliminating these two lanes can be used for creating a dedicated left-turn lane, as well as sidewalks, parkways, bike lanes, or a dedicated right-turn lane. Surprisingly, eliminating one through-lane in each direction does not result in a proportional loss of car-carrying capacity, and the addition of a dedicated left-turn lane (and sometimes a dedicated right-turn lane as well) helps reduce congestion. Adding turn lanes in this manner can also decrease accidents, because it results in fewer lane changes and better visibility for on-coming traffic. All of these benefits are useful in explaining road diets to skeptical traffic engineers, or reluctant business or community members.