Drive on 84th Street, and you’ll see a good example of how Lincoln builds new streets.

There’s plenty of elbow room, with two through lanes, dual left-turning lanes and right-turning lanes at every major intersection or connection.

It’s a sea of concrete, or a big, beautiful street — depending on your point of view.

But under a new approach adopted Monday to building streets , the city will build fewer big roads like that on the outskirts of the city until there’s enough traffic to warrant them, because the city is trying to stretch its streets budget by building more roads for less money.

The City Council approved legislation that allows the city to take a more phased approach to building new roads. Rather than immediately building an urban road with all the bells and whistles —curbs, gutters, storm sewers, streetlights and sidewalks —  the city will start out with less expensive roads that can be converted into a big road when traffic picks up.

This is a departure for the public works department, where past directors such as Allan Abbott believed it was better to build roads right the first time — to what some called a “gold standard.”

Public works officials have had their differences with City Council members who say sometimes street designs and costs get bloated.

Councilman Jonathan Cook has bemoaned medians that got “bigger and bigger and bigger,” growing from 16 feet to 28 feet.

Councilman Dan Marvin has long pushed the city to loosen its street standards so it can afford to build more streets.

“I believe before there was a one-size-fits-all standard,” Marvin said.

He became particularly incensed over the ballooning size and cost of Northwest 56th Street, near Adams Street. He said it doesn’t make sense to build behemoth concrete roads in areas where there won’t be much traffic for years.

At Marvin’s urging, Mayor Chris Beutler put together a task force last year to look for ways to lighten arterial street design standards without jeopardizing public safety. The group recommended roads be built according to a four-tier system based on projected traffic and adjacent land uses.

“Building roads today to handle traffic volumes that won’t exist on the road for decades is viewed as a luxury the city can’t afford under current conditions,” the task force concluded. “In times of limited funds, the public needs to get by with less.”

That means some new roads won’t immediately have center turn lanes, dual left-turning lanes, right-turn lanes, storm sewers or concrete paving.

Less stringent street standards may translate into more inconvenience for drivers and increased travel times, the task force acknowledged. But the group concluded Lincolnites’ expectations that they be able to drive unimpeded is outweighed by the need to pave more streets.

That doesn’t mean every new road will be a two-lane asphalt street.

For example, the task force recommended the following streets be widened to four lanes plus turning lanes: Old Cheney Road from 70th to 84th streets, South 56th Street from Old Cheney Road to Pine Lake Road and North 14th Street from Superior to Fletcher Avenue.

However, Alvo Road, near the elementary school under construction, will be built at an offset and then expanded to four lanes when traffic increases.

“We’re gonna spend a million dollars,” Marvin said. “Had we built that to the Yankee Hill (between 27th and 40th streets) standard, you’d be looking at a mile and a half and you’d be looking at $7 million. It would bankrupt our whole roads budget. We will build a road that’ll handle traffic for the next 25 years.”

Public Works head Greg MacLean said the new policy will allow his department to better leverage its money to build more roads sooner. He said if money were no object, the department would prefer to build a big road immediately, because it saves money over the long term.

“The best thing would be to have more money,” he said, “but that’s the part we couldn’t fix.”

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.