Ben Goldman reports on a new illustrative guide, Sustainable Street Network Principles, published by the Congress for New Urbanism, that seeks to educate planners and officials on how to create successful streets and neighborhoods.
According to Goldman, as a plain language companion to the "engineerese" found in the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares , "The goal of the Principles is to promote development patterns that add value to communities."
"The way to do that, said CNU President John Norquist, is to design streets to play three simultaneous roles: that of a transportation thoroughfare, a commercial marketplace, and a public space. 'Typically, U.S. DOT and State DOTs tend to look at roads only in the dimension of movement, and even in that one dimension, their rural-style forms fail in the city,' Norquist says."
FULL STORY: New Urbanists Release Principles for Sustainable Street Networks
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
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