Global Street Design Guide

How can we comparatively see streets of a similar type from around the world, or side-by-side have different types of streets to allow us to understand a particular kind of street?

Global Street Design Guide is a baseline for designing urban streets, covering aspects from many perspectives, but shifting priority to all users and their access, safety and mobility, as well as environmental quality, economic benefit, enhancement of place, public health and overall quality of life. The descending order of priority is: pedestrians; cyclists and transit riders; people doing business and providing city services; and people in personal motorised vehicles. It is intended to ‘inspire leaders, inform practitioners and empower communities in realizing their potential in their public space networks’, whilst ‘addressing a variety of street typologies and design elements in various contexts around the world’.

Laid out as a reference guide with colour photographs and both 3D and scaleD diagrams throughout, each of the street examples, based on actual streets from almost 50 places around the world, also has a numbered series of highlighted points to note, so that each example is fully cross-referenced. There is also information on objectives, key points and elements, and a percentage grading evaluating success. By presenting all of the examples in the same format, it is straightforward evaluating and comparing streets in a variety of ways.

Each chapter groups streets into typologies with an initial overview, strategies, and analysis preceding the examples. The chapters are grouped into three sections: About streets – an overview of key overall aspects of streets both physical and non-physical; Street design guidance – the key principles including design, utilities and infrastructure, operational and management strategies, and design control; and, Street transformations – the final main section includes the street examples divided into main-sub sections of pedestrian priority, shared, avenues and boulevards, and informal areas, with each of those further divided into individual types, and ending with a special chapter on intersections. There is an index, references, appendices and glossary.

This is not just another book on streets, but a comprehensive one in its scope to cover all aspects of streets, both in themselves and as projects, providing insights into all stages of implementation from inception to ongoing management. It is an easy-to-use guide to have on your desk as an approach to street design, based on people and places and demonstrating possible transformations through rigorous observation and analysis.