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New Orleans, LA


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NACTO Urban Street Design Guide Overview

Contents

Foreword

Urban Street Design Guide Outline

Five Principles o Urban Street Design

Streets and Intersections

Very Large Streets

Transit Streets

Medium Streets

Act Now!

Very Small Streets

Alleys & Passageways

Critical Issues

Speed and Saety

Design vs. Target Speed

Treatments & Elements

Moving the Curb

Low-Impact Design

Parklets, Pop-ups and Street Seats

Acknowledgments

4

5

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

34

35

National Association o

City Transportation Ocials

55 Water St., Floor 9

New York, NY 10041

www.nacto.org

[email protected]

212.839.6421


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Whats to Come

Outline or the 2013 NACTO Urban Street Design Guide

Streets and Intersections

Very Large Streets

Large Streets

Medium Streets

Small Street

Very Small Streets

Alleys and Passageways

Pedestrian Streets

Shared Streets and Home

Zones

Transit Streets

Complex Intersections

Compact Intersections

Reorganizing Intersections

Multi-leg Intersections

Public Plazas

Critical Issues

Speed and Saety

Design vs. Target Speed

Corner Design and Turning

Radii

Lane Width

Transit Lanes

Crosswalks and Crossings

Level o Service

Curbside Management

Design and Control Vehicle

Functional Classication

One-way vs. Two-way

Trac Control Devices

Visibility and Sightlines

Clear Zones

Access Management

Driveways

Treatments & Elements

Parklets, Pop-ups & Street

Seats

Low Impact Design

Moving the Curb

Bus Stops

Stormwater Management

Parking

Sidewalk Congurations

The NACTO Urban Street Design Guide has been orga-

nized to analyze the street rom multiple perspectives,

rom the birds eye view to the granular details. This

overview is the rst product in the development o a

design guide or urban streets. The chapters highlight-

ed here illustrate some o the greatest street design

practices around the country and synthesize thesenational eforts.

Street network design principles will be discussed

mainly as they relate to the design o individual cor-

ridors. Materials, lighting and street urniture are de-

emphasized here due to their inherently local charac-

ter and application.

The NACTO Urban Street Design Guide is slated orrelease in Summer 2013.

Items highlighted in bold are discussed in this overview.


6/366 NACTO Urban Street Design Guide Overview

Streets are Public Spaces

Streets are oten the most vital, yet underutilized

public spaces in cities. Conventional highway design

standards tend to look at streets as thoroughares

or trac and measure their perormance in terms

o speed, delay, throughput and congestion. In real-

ity, streets play a much larger role in the public lie o

cities and communities and should be designed to

include public spaces as well as channels or move-

ment.

Great Streets are Great for Business

Cities have realized that streets are an economic as-

set as much as a unctional element. Well-designed

streets generate higher revenues or businesses and

higher values or homeowners.

Five Principles o Urban Street Design

Washington, DC

Santa Barbara, CA

Designing world-class streets begins with a restatement o the problem

and the means by which to understand that problem. These ve principles

establish a clear understanding o the primary goals, ideals and tenets o

world-class street design.


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Design or SaetyIn 2010, 32,885 people were killed in trac crashes,

which are also the leading cause o death among

children aged 5 to 14. These deaths and hundreds o

thousands o injuries are avoidable. Trac engineers

can and should do better, by designing streets where

people walking, parking, shopping, bicycling, working

and driving can cross paths saely.

Streets can be Changed

Transportation engineers can work exibly within the

building envelope o a street. This includes moving

curbs, changing alignments, daylighting corners and

redirecting trac where necessary. Many city streets

were created in a diferent era and need to be recon-

gured to meet new needs. Street space can also be

reused or diferent purposes, such as parklets, bicycle

parking and pop-up caes.

Act Now!

Implementing projects quickly using temporary mate-

rials helps inorm public decision making. Cities across

the US have begun using a stepped approach to major

redesigns, where temporary materials are used in the

short term, to be replaced by permanent materials

ater the public has tested the design thoroughly.

Saety campaign in New York City

Brooklyn, NY

New York, NY



STREETS & INTERSECTIONS

Conventional street design has historically avored the unction o movement

over that o place. The NACTO Urban Street Design Guide considers street

design as a balance o these two needs and saety as the driving parameter in

design.

The Guide uses street width and dimension as a primary point o departure.

Width is a limiting actor in design when considering the re-organization o agiven corridor. The guide has been organized accordingly, ranging rom Very

Large Streets to Very Small Streets.

This organization deviates rom conventional practice, which is limited by

unctional classication or an alternative classication scheme, usually

based on context. Many local jurisdictions have established their own classi-

cation criteria. Using width as opposed to type or class allows or the street

to be analyzed oremost as a container and a public space, with context, land

use and trac as orces that together shape that space. In select cases, the

Guide will highlight special streets, such as shared streets and transit streets,

which ocus on specic street users and contexts.

The Intersections portion o the Guide will highlight both spatial and tem-

poral design strategies, ocusing on how cities can make junctions saer or

everyone using the street.


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Streets

Streets are critical arteries or transporting goods and

people, but they are also the places where we live,

work, play and interact. The design and management

o an urban street must reect and accommodate

these diverse and competing uses. The layout and op-

eration o streets can prioritize and enhance particular

uses or the benet o all.

This chapter presents streets by width, rom wide tonarrow. It illustrates innovative designs that meet

the varying and changing needs o urban streets. This

includes:

Fundamental saety and operational strategies

The spatial qualities o the street, rom building

line to building line

The relationship between land use and trac

Management strategies or parking and other

curbside uses

Flexibility o street use during the course o a day,

week or year

Intersections

An intersection is any place where diferent users mix

and compete or time within the same space. Inter-

sections take many orms and shapes, ranging rom

complex junctions to driveways to the meeting o

two paths. They are oten dened by their layout and

operations: trac signals, roundabouts, T-junctions.

Simplicity, compactness, low speed and eye contact

are avored in intersection design.

This chapter presents intersections as extensions o

streets. It illustrates possibilities to saely, eciently

and efectively manage urban intersections. These

areas include:

Major nodes and meeting points

Principles o layout, design and operations

Opportunities or public space

Los Angeles, CA

San Francisco, CA



1

3

4

Very Large Streets

Very large streets support diverse uses, spaces and

trac streams, yet also produce large, complex

intersections that present unique operational chal-

lenges. For most cities, their very large streets are

also some o their most well-known, and are critical

to presenting a modern livable city to visitors.

Trees are spaced to have

touching crowns which

orms almost an un-broken canopy parallel

to the street. They are

planted right up to the

intersections to break

down the overall scale

o the street.

1

There are two scales o

light xtures, signage

and other elements

larger in the center and

smaller on the sides.

2

Example: Octavia Boulevard

This section is based on Octavia Boulevard in San

Francisco. Octavia Boulevard was redesigned as a

multi-way boulevard ollowing the removal o a major

highway. Though only a ew blocks long, it doubles as

an important neighborhood entry point and as a thor-

oughare that carries heavy loads o trac to other

parts o the city.


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2

5

The width o the local access

lanes is as narrow as possible.

Emergency vehicle access

is accommodated through

mountable curbs on the side

median.

3

All three medians provide

reuge or pedestrians crossing

the street.

4

The center roadway is signalized,

while the side roadways are stop-

controlled. Drivers on local ac-

cess lanes are allowed to make all

movements.

Tree-lined sidewalks provide

access to outdoor space or

active rst-oor uses and

other pedestrian activities.

5

Very Large Streets have the possibility or transit lanes, cycle

tracks and jogging paths. Tree-lined medians can separate trac

streams and create spaces or pedestrian activity and recreation.

Octavia Boulevard, San Francisco, CA

New York, NY



Transit Streets

Transit streets prioritize transit over general trac,

provide sae places or people to walk and access

the stops and orm the backbone o a larger local

public transit network. Transit Streets are designed

to make transit work better or everyone. Whether

bus rapid transit, light-rail transit, streetcar, or the

local bus, or transit to live up to its billing, it should

not be stuck in trac.

Pittsburgh Busway

Pittsburghs Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway was

the rst BRT-style system in the country, opening in

1983. The city now has our busways, mostly located

on ormer rail rights-o-way and completely separated

rom other vehicle trac.

Pittsburgh, PABeyondDC

Metro

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles Orange Line

This 14-mile route opened in 2005 and operates in a

ormer rail alignment. This system closely mimics rail

service, with stations located on platorms with of-

board are collection. The project included a signi-

cant upgrade to the trac signal coordination along

the route, which is controlled remotely to maximize

on-time perormance.

Bus Rapid Transit

From a street-management perspective, a Bus Rapid

Transit route is a transit street that prioritizes bus

travel through dedicated running ways, trac signal

pre-emption (green wave) and of-board are col-

lection. The street is organized similarly to a light rail

corridor, in that dedicated right-o-way is bounded by

sae and accessible stations. However, using buses as

the transit vehicle provides greater routing exibility

and allows cities to use technology in coordination

with geometry to speed transit riders towards their

destinations.

In the US, current practice ranges rom ully separated

transit lanes, with passing lanes and pre-paid board-

ing stations, to bus bulbs and signal pre-emption.


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4

5

1

Medium Streets

Neighborhood commercial streets, residential

avenues and thoroughares are magnets or neigh-

borhood lie and oten medium-sized relative to

other streets in the city. Medium-sized streets that

traverse the center o a neighborhood should be

easy to cross or pedestrians and vehicles alike,

promoting the ree fow o people between home,

stores, oces and schools.

Over the course o the 20th Century, the roadways

o many o these medium-sized streets in neighbor-

hoods were widened in an attempt to accommodate

more auto trac. Sidewalks were narrowed, trees

removed, on-street parking restricted and signals

coordinated to process more cars. Cities are now

retrotting these streets to support new develop-

ment and to reinorce their neighborhood scale.

The previous 4-lanelayout was recon-

gured as 3 lanes,

including a turn lane.

This reduces weav-

ing movements and

sel-moderates auto

speeds.

1

Bike lanes were in-

stalled and the parking

lane widened. This

provides enough space

or cyclists to ride just

outside the door zone.

2


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2

3

Brooklyn, NY

Rush hour parking restrictions

were removed, providing more

parking or local businesses.

3

Raised medians with pedes-

trian reuge islands were in-

stalled wherever possible. The

one-way side streets acilitate

this.

4

Trees were planted on the

median to visually narrow the

roadway or drivers and beau-

tiy the street.

5

The City and the community worked together to

develop a solution. One travel lane was removed and

one was converted to a center turn lane. The remain-

ing space won through the road diet was given over to

wider parking areas and bicycle lanes on either side.

Planted medians were installed to shorten the cross-

ing distance or pedestrians.

Below is an illustration o the road diet on Vanderbilt

Avenue, completed in 2009. Since implementation,

vehicles have slowed down, cyclists increased by

80% and injuries rom trac crashes have gone down

signicantly.

Example: Vanderbilt Avenue

Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, NY ormerly consisted

o our travel lanes, two in each direction, with parking

on either side. Between double-parking and let turns,

through travelers were running a slalom course that

endangered everyone, rom drivers and passengers

exiting cars to pedestrians to cyclists. Speeding was

rampant.

Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, NY



The use o temporary materials in street design has

expanded in recent years as cities work to remake

their streets using low-cost and innovative meth-

ods. Short-term improvements allow residents and

visitors to experience new street congurations

without the commitment o major unding or new

curbs and other capital improvements. This method

has many advantages:

Neighborhood Aesthetics designs or tempo-

rary treatments can be selected together with

local merchants and neighborhood organizations,

and they can be involved in planting owers and

other ongoing activities.

Health & Saety a quick turnaround project can

immediately address unsae conditions on streets

and at intersections.

Low-cost - materials like paint, glue, or gravel are

inexpensive compared to asphalt and cement

curbs.

Changeable - i a pilot project has negative im-

pacts on parking or trac patterns, it is easy torestore the roadway to its original condition.

Act Now!

Philadelphia, PAUniversityCityDistrict


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Very Small Streets

Very small streets, less than 40 eet in width be-

tween buildings, are as much a part o a citys street

network as larger streets. While they may not carry

heavy loads o through trac, they provide access

to properties and are oten integral parts o the

non-motorized street network. Many cities have

made them pedestrian-only, removed curbs, or cre-

ated shared spaces or people walking, driving and

cycling.

Santa Monica, CA

Ater

Santa Monica, CA

Beore

Example: Longellow Shared Street

The cross-section on page 19 diagrams Longellow

Street, a curbless shared residential street in the

Borderline neighborhood o Santa Monica, CA.

Longellow Street was one o the rst shared streets

in the United States. It codied and set a precedent in

the US or what is known as a woonerfin the Neth-

erlands, a Verkehrsberuhigungzone in Germany and a

home zone in the United Kingdom.

Previous attempts at establishing shared streets had

limited success. Politicians oten view low speed

zones as speed traps. Without sidewalks, a system

must be developed to guide those with limited sight

and ensure that drivers yield to other street users.

The success o Longellow Street is owed in large partto the residents and the city. The two collaborated

to develop a shared space design or pedestrians,

car parking and two-way trac. In creating a legallyshared space, the city paid particular attention to

accessibility concerns and signage.


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10 mph warning speed limitand shared street signs

2

Speed tables at each o the inter-

sections

Solar-powered lights

Stormwater is inltratedthrough the use o permeable

paving systems, landscape

planters and other purposely

located pervious suraces.

14-oot wide shared roadway1

Wheelchair-accessible mini-curbs

guide pedestrians with limited

sight. The roadway is considered

the accessible route.

2

3

1

Longellow Street, Santa Monica, CA

3



Alleys & Passageways

Alleys present cities with special challenges, but

also opportunities. Typically built without standard

street drainage, they tend to food and many have

never been signicantly improved since the neigh-

borhood was built. Today, cities around the US are

realizing that alleys can be turned into community

space and improved using green design.

San Francisco, CA

Fort Worth, TXBardstown, KY

New Orleans, LA


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Chicago: Green Alleys

Chicago DOT spearheaded a green alleys program

in 2006 to improve stormwater management without

new storm drains, reduce the heat island efect and

increase the use o recycled materials. The program

began with materials research, six pilot projects and

the creation o the Green Alley Handbook. This hand-

book was a valuable tool used to educate the com-

munity. Ater the pilots were installed, the program

expanded to 32 alleys and is now a line item in the

citys annual budget. Funding comes rom the local

aldermans budget or capital improvements and rom

discretionary unds.

Metropolis

Beore

Baltimore, MD

GreenGarage

Detroit, MI

Baltimore: Alley Gating and Greening Program

Administered by the non-prot Community Greens,

the Baltimore alley program began in the early 2000s

when a group o neighbors sought to close their

network o alleys, which were overrun with crime and

trash. Ater encountering legal resistance, the group

ormed a coalition and drated an ordinance that

would allow alleys to be gated, which was passed in

2007.

Gated alleys are subject to the ollowing regulations:

The community leases the alley rom the city,

without the need or an easement.

The city has the right to re-open th alley to the

public.

So as not to constitute a taking, 100% o resi-

dents must agree to its closure.

Residents are responsible or maintenance.

ChicagoGreenAlleyHandbook

Ater

Chicago, IL

Best Practices: Green Alleys

Detroit: Green Alleys

Green Garage, a community-based business enter-

prise center in Midtown Detroit, began working with

local businesses in 2008 to renovate a trash-strewn

alley in the middle o the neighborhood. Together

with Wayne State University, the group was able to

completely renovate the alleyway, installing gardens,

permeable pavers and bollards to keep out through

trac. The renovated alley has become a vibrant gre-

enway between buildings.



CRITICAL ISSUES

Streets and sidewalks are shaped by many variablessome visible and some

not. While a new bike or bus lane tangibly alters the right-o-way, actors like

signal timing, unctional classication and level-o-service constitute only a

small selection o the many invisible parameters that inuence a streets de-

sign and operation. Let unaddressed, these critical issues can prevent streets

rom serving the needs o adjacent residents and businesses.

A growing number o cities have overcome these obstacles and are improv-

ing their streets. An emerging catalogue o best practices, supported by a

new body o research, is setting a better standard or city street design. The

Critical Issues section will help practitioners and decision-makers alike com-

prehend how to best integrate city trac engineering principles into street

designs that balance the needs o residents with the realities o trac.


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Speed and Saety

Vehicle speed plays a critical role in the cause and

severity o crashes. Lowering the requency o in-

juries and atalities remains a crucial public health

goal or our cities. This section documents the rela-

tionship between speed and saety, looking at how

appropriate street design can make our cities saer.

100

80

60

40

20

020 30 40 50

Percent

Vehicle Speed (MPH)

Risk of Pedestrian Fatality

Proactive Design

Conventional street design is ounded in highway

design principles that avor wide, straight, at and

open roads with clear zones that orgive and account

or inevitable driver error. This is dened as passive

design.

In recent years a new paradigm has emerged or urban

streets called proactive design. A proactive approach

uses design elements to afect behavior and to lower

speeds. Embracing proactive design may be the single

most consequential intervention in reducing pedes-

trian injury and atality. Since human error is inevitable,

reducing the consequences o any given error or lapse

o attention is critical. Cities around the country that

have implemented measures to reduce and stabilize

speed have shown a reduction in serious injuries and

deaths or everyone on the road, rom drivers to pas-

sengers to pedestrians.

Higher speeds =Higher crash risk and severity

There is a direct correlation between vehicle speed,

crashes and severity thereo.

350

300

250

200

150

10050

015

77

20

112

25

152

30

197

35

246

40

301

Reaction Distance Stopping Distance

Distance(Feet)

Vehicle Speed (MPH)

Reaction & Stopping Distance vs. Speed

Reaction and Stopping Distance

The amount o distance a driver takes to react and

come to a stop increases with increasing speeds.

Bus

24,000 lbs

Car

2,000 lbs

Cyclist/Pedestrian

30 - 250 lbs

Mass

The diference in mass between the two colliding

bodies means the lighter o the two will bear the most

severe injury.


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15 mph

20 mph

25 mph

30 mph

Ridgewood, NJ

Vision Cone

A drivers visual ocus diminishes as speed increases.



Design Speed

The concept o design speed was originally dened in

1936 as the maximum approximately uniorm speed

which [can] probably be adopted by the aster group

o drivers, once clear o urban areas. The denition

has since evolved, and it is now used to select various

geometric eatures o a roadway.

Except in urban areas with hilly topography, design

speed is not a major actor in urban street design,

although it may be included in street design guide-

lines. For example, many highway design manuals

stipulate that the design speed be based primarily

upon a streets unctional classication, irrespective

o context. Many manuals also suggest that design

speed should be 5 to 10 mph above posted speed. The

general premise draws on the principle that roads de-

signed or heavy trac, such as arterials, should have

higher desirable and actual design speeds.

Operating Speed

The operating speed is the speed at which the major-

ity o trac on a given roadway operates. Operating

speed is oten dened as the 85th percentile vehicle

speed.

Posted Speed

The posted speed is based upon the operating speed

and local laws. In many circumstances, when routine

speed checks are conducted, i the 85th percentile

speed has increased since the last test, the posted

speed will in turn be raised.

Consequences

Current practices accommodate and even encourage

speeding by designing streets where drivers may travel

aster than the intended speed limit. By applying rural

and suburban design practices to urban streets, agen-

cies are actually creating streets that become danger-

ous to pedestrians and bicyclists. In basing the posted

speed limit on the 85th percentile, agencies allowspeeds to be normalized based upon how ast drivers

are actually driving, rather than establishing the speed

at which drivers and other road users will be saest.

Higher design speeds are deleterious to urban envi-

ronments in mandating larger curb radii, wider trac

lanes, streets without on-street parking, guardrails,

and clear zones. Accommodating higher speeds also

takes up valuable land. By designing or a aster set

o drivers, crashes increase due to the diferential in

speeds between those traveling at the design speed

versus the posted speed.

Recommendation

Target Speed = Design Speed =

Posted Speed

Design using target speedsthe speed you intend or

drivers to gorather than operating speed, the speed

at which drivers are going. Target speeds may all

between 15-30 mph on general streets, while alleys,

shared spaces and pedestrian priority streets may be

assigned target speeds as low as 10 mph. Many o theelements o great urban streets may then be incorpo-

rated into these lower speed streets, using benches,

narrow lanes, trees, on-street parking, or small curb

radii, which create a virtuous cycle that naturally en-

courages slower speeds.

Design Speed vs. Target Speed


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lane may be 11 eet wide.

Trees and landscaping trees narrow a drivers

eld o vision and encourage slower driving.

Medians and curb extensions narrow pedes-

trian crossing distances help to manage driver be-

havior and mutually improve drivers and pedestri-

ans visibility o one another.

Trac calming devices speed tables, speed

humps and other tools that physically control

speeds make it dicult to drive above the recom-

mended speed.

The cycle track, on-street parking and trees along this street

help reduce vehicle speed.

Portland, OR

Chicago, IL

A mini trac circle reduces speeding through this intersec-

tion.

Signals signals can be timed to manage ve-

hicle speeds or to prioritize other user groups like

cyclists.

On-street parking and bike lanes make drivers

aware o the presence o cyclists and entering/

exiting vehicles.

Lane width research shows that reducing lane

widths does not increase the requency o crash-

es, even on suburban arterials. On urban streets,

the impact o driver error is greater, creating even

more o an imperative to manage speed. 10-ootwide lanes are o sucient width or target speeds

o 40 mph or less. On bus and truck routes, one

Trees and narrow street width encourage slower vehicle

speeds.

Curb extensions orce motorists to make slower turns and

reduce the pedestrian crossing distance at this intersection.

New Orleans, LA

Plaineld, IL

Speed Control Mechanisms



TREATMENTS & ELEMENTS

Public spaces, streets and sidewalks are oten limited by their preexisting ge-

ometries and adjacent land uses. Despite these constraints, cities today have

access to a growing toolbox o treatments and elements to activate their

rights-o-way. From curbside public seating to green inrastructure and pe-

destrian saety improvements, an array o new design strategies are helping

cities carve vibrant public spaces out o underutilized roadbeds. This section

investigates these innovations as part o a exible approach to street design

and saety, ocusing in particular on the curbside as a malleable space bridg-

ing the sidewalk and the street.

.


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Moving the Curb

Originally designed to capture stormwater and lead

it to catch basins, curbs mark the traditional divid-

ing line between motorized and non-motorized

space on the street. On-street parking reinorces

this division and serves as a physical boundary be-

tween the sidewalk and the street. Today, as cities

reinvest in their streets as public spaces, curbside

uses are beginning to change and evolve.

Bike Corrals

San Francisco, CA New York, NY

The Guide looks at the curbside as a exible space

that bridges and negotiates the street and the side-

walk. Cae seating or adjacent businesses can replace

curbside parking spaces. Bioswales and landscaping

near the intersection can improve a streets ecological

perormance, while simultaneously calming tra-

c. The curb can host temporary uses and activities,

such as ood trucks and vendors, or low-cost saety

improvements that shorten pedestrian crossings at in-tersections. Cycle tracks and interim sidewalk widen-

ing, meanwhile, ocially extend the curb line and shit

parking into a oating lane.

The images on pages 30-31 present a ew o the

emerging curbside uses being embraced by US Cities.

Public Space


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Make a new curb:

Parking Lane Materials

St. Paul, MN

Landscaping & Trac Calming

Santa Fe, NM

Food Trucks

Washington, DC

Bioswales

Portland, OR

Pop-up Caes

Long Beach, CA

BethFertig

CNU



Low Impact Design

Low impact design (LID) reers to eforts to manage

stormwater at the source, as opposed to directing it

into the sewer system. LIDs are increasingly important

as cities deal with climate change, water pollution and

outdated inrastructure. In some circumstances, they

can reduce long-term construction and maintenance

costs, alleviate hazards rom ooding and provide op-

portunities or innovative design. The latter is espe-

cially important as cities grapple with wide expanses

o impermeable suraces causing stormwater runof.

Where a given street alls within its particular water-

shed dictates LID usage. Almost every street has a

running slope: the higher portion deals with alling

rain, while the lower portion handles rain and runof.

This begins to suggest design solutions reective o

local topography. Climates with more rainall can sup-

port lush plantings, while more arid climates require

systems that can remain dry or long periods.

Benets

Delineates no parking zones through enhanced

vegetation

Landscapes and beauties the street

Diminishes pedestrian crossing distances when

located in medians or bulb-outs

Reduces ponding at pedestrian ramps

More Than Just Rain Gardens

Calms trac as drivers move slower past treesand landscaping

Provides rationale or narrowing street widths

Acts as a bufer between trac and the pedes-

trian realm

Portland, OR

Port Townsend, WA

San Francisco, CA


33/36Seattle,



Parklets, Pop-ups & Street Seats

Parklets, pop-ups and street seats transorm one

to two parking spaces into 200-400 square eet o

public space. These treatments may be temporary

or permanent. Parklet programs are on the rise all

across the country, as cities rethink how to best uti-

lize these public amenities.

The ollowing criteria are used in the design and place-

ment o parklets, pop-up caes and street seats:

Location Lack o public space in the surrounding area

Surrounding land uses that can attract people

Identied community or business steward

Pre-existing community support

Not immediately adjacent to the corner

Not blocking a re hydrant or bus stop

Design

Materials that can stand up to impacts, resist

scratches and not degrade under constant UV and

moisture exposure

Protection rom trac while allowing or visibility

via wheel stops, exible bollards, street markings

and railing edges

Curbside drainage not impeded

A business owner, community benet district, non-

prot or resident, is typically responsible or the con-

struction costs, maintenance and liability insurance or

the parklet. Permits are renewed annually.

New York, NY

Philadelphia, PA

San Francisco, CA

UniversityCityDistrictDistrict


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AcknowledgmentsThank You to Our Funders and Sponsors

NACTO extends its deep appreciation to the ol-

lowing institutions or their generous support o

the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide Overview:

Foundation

The Rockeeller Foundation

Surdna Foundation

Corporate

Parsons Brinckerhof

STV Group

IBM

Verizon

HAKS

Car2go

NACTO

Board

Atlanta

Baltimore

Boston

Chicago

Detroit

HoustonLos Angeles

Minneapolis

New York

Philadelphia

Phoenix

Portland

San Francisco

Seattle

Washington DC

Advisory Committee

Michele Wynn

Theo Ngongang

Vineet Gupta

Nathan Rosenberry, David Seglin, Chris Wuellner

Triette Reeves

Jefrey WeatherordJay Kim

Don Elwood

Linda Bailey, Mike Flynn, Nicholaas Peterson

Ariel Ben-Amos, Stephen Buckley

Shane Silsby

Peter Koonce, Kurt Kreuger

Seleta Reynolds

Kevin ONeill

Sam Zimbabwe

Richard Mendoza

Khalil Zaied

Tom Tinlin

Gabe Klein

Ron Freeland

Jefrey WeatherordJaime de la Vega

Jon Wertjes

Janette Sadik-Khan

Rina Cutler

Wylie Bearup

Sam Adams

Edward Reiskin

Peter Hahn

Terry Bellamy

National Association o

City Transportation Ocials

55 Water St., Floor 9

New York, NY 10041

www.nacto.org

[email protected]

212.839.6421

NACTO would like to thank the ollowing individu-

als or their hard work and dedication to the Urban

Street Design Guide project and or their contribu-

tion to this Overview.

Lead Project Staf

Linda Bailey, Federal Programs Advisor, New York

City Department o TransportationDavid Vega-Barachowitz, Sustainable Initiatives

Program Manager, NACTO

Nelson\Nygaard Associates

Michael King, Rick Chellman, Stephanie Wright,

Paul Supawanich

Community Design + Architecture

Thomas Kronemeyer, Jonah Chiarenza

President

Executive Director

Janette Sadik-Khan

Ron Thaniel


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