You’re a street designer (you just don’t know it yet)
You’re a street designer
(you just don’t know it yet)
The design principles behind Streetmix
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” — Jane Jacobs
The Times Square in New York received a huge makeover in 2009, when the traffic lanes surrounding it were closed to car traffic and turned into pedestrian plazas. In San Francisco, two elevated freeways damaged by the 1989 earthquake were eventually torn down — one demolition opening up the waterfront, the other one allowing a desolate neighborhood to thrive. Copenhagen famously reinvented itself as a bike-friendly city in the last few decades.
Those are a few most famous examples of street redesigns. Chances are, however, that smaller streets around you are changing, too — as is our way of thinking about them. While streets were originally built with people in mind (a century ago, it wasn’t uncommon for parents to just feel safe to tell their kids to go play in the street, even in a big city center), throughout the last century we largely surrendered them to car traffic. However, many city planners and urban designers are revisiting that approach and re-imagining streets as once again more pedestrian-, bike-, and public transit-friendly.
A typical way to communicate new ideas is via a “street section” — a slice of the road illustrating all of its parts side by side, from the building on one end, to the building on the other.