Good Urbanism
These two photos show a well designed urban street in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. A well designed urban street is one where a pedestrian can feel safe both from traffic and from crime, where residents feel safe entering their private homes, and where traffic is calmed and separated from the pedestrians.
Though I waited until the sidewalks were empty before taking the pictures, the design of these streets creates an active, lively and safe experience for the pedestrian. How is this done? Let’s look at a section drawing of the street to find out.
The street is composed of a number of different areas. Pedestrians walk on the sidewalk in area (C). A number of buffers and barriers protects and separates the pedestrians as they walk, both from people entering the houses and from the cars traveling down the road.
The first buffer (B) is created between the pedestrian and the private dwellings (A) by the use of projecting entry stairs. This buffer zone also allows pedestrians to pass each other or pull over without blocking the walking area. Additionally, this buffer allows people to enter the houses without feeling like they are in the middle of the sidewalk.
Vehicle traffic occurs off of the sketch to the right of area (E). The pedestrian is provided two buffers between where they walk (C) and where cars are moving. Area (D), the first buffer, is a row of trees. The tree buffer also allows the doors of parked cars to swing open without blocking the sidewalk. Area (E), the second buffer, is a row of parked cars. This row of cars also acts as a traffic calming device, as moving vehicles have to watch for cars pulling into traffic.
If you took away any of these buffer zones, the street would feel much less pleasant. If you removed the stairs (B), residents would feel vulnerable as they entered their homes. The result would probably be the installation of metal gates in front of the doors to create a sense of protection and separation.
If you removed the trees the pedestrian would feel less separation of themselves from the cars. If you removed the row of parked cars, you would have more traffic and it would be moving quite a bit faster, making the sidewalk feel less safe.
When added together these small elements create a pleasant and walkable urban street.
Tags: new urbanism, urban design, urbanism, walkable
Instead of stairs, what about using gates to board off the house from the sidewalk. They don’t have to be paricularly big, take up a lot of room, or be lockable. You wouldn’t take up much room than the stairs, and you would dispense with stairs that could be particularly troubling for wheelchairs/strollers/or even just carrying large items into the house (like a TV).