Living street
A living street or residential street is a street designed with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind. Living streets also act as social spaces, allowing children to play and encouraging social interactions on a human scale, safely and legally. Living streets consider all pedestrians granting equal access to elders and those who are disabled. These roads are still available for use by motor vehicles; however, their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorized transport. The reduction of motor vehicle dominance creates more opportunities for public transportation.
Living Streets achieve these strategies by implementing the shared space approach. Reducing demarcations between vehicle traffic and pedestrians create a cohesive space without segregating different modes of transportation. Vehicle parking may also be restricted to designated bays.
These street design principles first became popularized in the Netherlands during the 1970s, and the Dutch word woonerf is often used as a synonym for living street.Overview
Current street infrastructure in the US
The U.S. Department of Transportation's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices focuses primarily on vehicular traffic and how to optimize its movement. Streets are developed to simplify the tasks of the road and to create uniformity—uniform look and feel of the road reduces perception/reaction time, giving similar interpretations across roads and drivers. The design of the traffic control devices, which focus on the vehicle users, create a constant for when maintenance is required. Conversely, the concept of a living street focuses on creating healthier, more walkable, and more livable places while optimizing environmental benefits. Living streets aim to prioritize the safety of all street users, especially more vulnerable groups such as pedestrians and cyclists, by improving infrastructure to accommodate all street users. The living street puts a higher priority on the pedestrians rather than the vehicle traffic.
Urban Design Professor Donald Appleyard's Street Livability Study in the 1970s suggested streets in the United States were often noisy, polluted, and dangerous, and residents and cities both do not feel in control of creating clean and safe street environments. Livable streets aim to create cleaner and safer environments by creating spaces where cars are guests to pedestrians and cyclists, and by greening streets: implementing plants and greenery within the context of urban design to facilitate a more hospitable environment. Greening consists of improving the natural and built environment through reviving and developing community parks, gardens, and street trees. Establishing living streets is one way that communities can grow their urban infrastructure; further developing these urban strategies can ensure that the environmental assets deliver their full potential. This concept prioritizes the city environment, pedestrians, and community accessibility, as opposed to prioritizing movement of vehicular traffic and vehicular accessibility over other considerations. The Dutch woonerf is an example of this concept: it eliminates exclusive spaces for pedestrians and vehicular traffic, instead encouraging the whole street to be accessible to pedestrians and providing traffic calming measures for vehicles. The living environment predominates the built environment on the street; the brick streets and integrated greenery produces a nonlinear path. In their paper Reclaiming the Residential Street as a Play Place, Trantle and Doyle suggest that woonerfs increase traffic safety and children are more likely to play near or in the street. The woonerf street give equal opportunity for pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles but pedestrians have a priority over the vehicles. This urban living street has demonstrated that it is successful in the Netherlands.''''''Purpose of the living street
The living street reimagines the role of the street by reconsidering its purpose and who it is intended to serve. The street may be cooler, safer, and more walkable when implemented. Living streets produce more attractive spaces that promote the user's health and well-being. Spaces create social cohesion within a neighborhood and increase the sense of community while reinforcing cultural identity. Living streets can serve as a recreational space for the neighborhood and improve the air quality through reduced carbon emissions and other air pollutants, as well as improve water quantity and quality. Living streets can also prevent erosion and flooding through green infrastructure, stormwater management, and reuse. Living streets combine three significant components: being green, cool and complete.Street concepts
Green streets
Green street design involves implementing stormwater management strategies to protect nearby water sources from pollutants, and encouraging water reuse. Green streets help alleviate water security issues. Drainage systems within a city are designed to provide an outlet for the runoff coming from impervious surfaces. Managing water at the source reduces the pollutants carried into local water supplies. Pollutants can be harmful to local ecosystems and water quality. Introducing green infrastructure into urban developments can make up for the lost opportunities for groundwater to infiltrate the natural environment. Green infrastructure includes permeable pavements, these porous surfaces allow runoff to infiltrate the surface. Bioretention cells or bioswales are areas that contain vegetation that is planted in engineered soil. The soil allows for the filtration and storage of stormwater, recharging groundwater supplies. Producing tree canopies is another aspect of green street design. Street trees with adequate draining allow the rainwater runoff to penetrate the soil and slow stormwater runoff. Street trees also reduce the effects of the urban heat island by shading paved surfaces from heat, the environment remains cool. They also use evaporative cooling and can sequester carbon, improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions. Implementing green streets helps to reduce stormwater runoff while increasing the water quality and supply to the urban environment. Creating more resilience to climate change with a healthier community.Cool streets
Cool streets aim to reduce the effects of the urban heat island. Traditional streets are made of dark impervious materials that absorb energy from the sun and create warmer surrounding temperatures, increasing emissions and stormwater temperatures. These surfaces create a demand for air conditioning to cool structures. Increased conditioning contributes to higher electricity needs, escalating the overall demand within a city. Hotter conditions drive the peak energy up during hot summer days, as conditioning, lights, and appliances contribute to the energy need. Overloading systems and energy grids can lead to blackouts. Power companies can implement controlled brownouts or blackouts during this time to reduce the overall outage time. Hotter conditions can harm human health, causing general discomfort, respiratory difficulties, heat cramps, exhaustion, and non-fatal heat stroke. Implementing green infrastructure and replacing dark impervious materials is a solution to cool the surrounding environment and stormwater runoff. Implementing green infrastructure such as rain gardens, planter boxes, and green parking can reduce the effects of the urban heat island. Reducing dark impervious surfaces with lighter-colored materials reduces air temperature as the street surface reflects solar energy. Cool streets assist in creating cooler communities for residents within them. Through reducing energy usage, increasing water quality, and decreasing emissions. Consequently, lower temperatures reduce both emissions and temperature. This means communities may have fewer temperature-related illnesses, and the temperature of stormwater runoff reduces its impact on aquatic life in receiving waters. These lighter surfaces are also more resistant to heat degradation, and their reflective properties allow for more visibility at night. An increase in reflectivity also contributes to the reduction of energy usage. Street lights can run a lower wattage bulb, reducing demand. Cool streets create environments with reduced air temperatures, generating more comfort.Complete streets
are accessible, accommodating, and safe for pedestrians and cyclists. By implementing urban development strategies, active travel, community engagement, and safe access are promoted to develop a street for all users. They are intended to provide social equity for all users. Low-income neighborhoods are most vulnerable to Incomplete streets. Incomplete streets adversely affect the surrounding communities as the conditions can be unsafe and create more significant risks for pedestrians. Incomplete streets have a higher potential for crashes or injury, and effects relating to air pollution can also influence pedestrians. incomplete streets create challenging conditions for pedestrians to walk or bicycle. Incomplete streets create car-dependent barriers and are designed only with cars in mind. Complete Streets provide drivers and other pedestrians opportunities to alter their means of transportation. The reduction of vehicular traffic increases walkability as well as bicycle safety. Complete streets provide the highest priority to walking and sustainable transportation. Complete streets assess factors such as trip duration, path gradation, and typical weather conditions are assessed to see if active travel is possible. Each design of a Complete Street includes various elements. Design strategies in complete streets include lane reductions/width reductions - decreasing the right-of-way of vehicles giving the street back to pedestrians, and creating opportunities for bicycle lanes. Raised crosswalks - a traffic calming device that brings motor traffic to the level pedestrians walk at. Curb extensions and medians increase space for street amenities such as plants, benches, and trees. Strategies implemented within complete streets improve overall health and strengthen urban ecosystems. Complete streets create environments enticing pedestrians to walk or bike. The spaces created in a complete street also encourage social interactions and productive areas. Cities are actively designing streets to prioritize pedestrian traffic efficiently and safely, create streets that reduce air pollution, and absorb storm runoff. Developing complete streets also considers future technology. Future development of autonomous vehicles will reduce parking demand.