Streetspace Interventions and Street Designs

Summary

The EU-funded MORE project (2018-2022) developed two tools to generate options for streetspace allocation: Streetspace Interventions and Street Designs. The aim of these tools is to assist planners and the public to explore feasible solutions for streetspace allocation taking into account the needs of all street users and a range of policy objectives.

The Streetspace Interventions tool generates broad options for interventions to redesign, reallocate, or regulate streetspace, providing information on how these interventions can address the needs of the different street users and potentially meet policy objectives. The tool fills a gap in existing methods, as the information on possible interventions is scattered in academic studies and technical reports, each focusing on specific case studies, and usually looking at a single street use and policy objective. The tool brings together the existing information and classifies it in a systematic way, providing planners and the public with a better understanding of the characteristics of different types of interventions in comparison with alternatives, using standardized information about the likely effect on street users and policy objectives.

The Street Designs tool generates detailed streetspace allocation designs, in cross section, combining different design elements. The tool provides detailed information of how streetspace allocation options translate into a complete allocation of street space (in cross section) among different uses. A street design can have several design elements (e.g. pedestrian pavement, cycle lane, lanes for motorised traffic). Furthermore, these elements can have different sizes (e.g. narrow vs. medium size pedestrian pavement). It is important that planners consider the full range of feasible combinations of design elements, including
less obvious ones, as each combination addresses the needs of street users and policy objectives in a different way.