Shirekeep Road Design
The most basic design standard implemented by the Commission during the reconstruction of Shirekeep's roads. (Note that size of carriageways vary from location to location.)
Until very recently, streets in Shirekeep served not only as transportation routes but as the front yards and public squares of the city. Cars, horse-drawn carriages, people on foot or horseback, and, later, bicycles and streetcars shared streets with pushcart vendors, outdoor markets, children playing, and neighbors socializing. City streets were vibrant, though plagued by safety, sanitation, and mobility problems.
The Shirekeep Reconstruction Commission's overall goals and principles with the design of Shirekeep's streets are:
- 1. Design for safety
2. Design to balance local access and mobility
3. Design for context
4. Design streets as public spaces
5. Design for sustainability and resiliency
6. Design for cost-effectiveness
The city’s efforts to enhance street safety through engineering, education, and enforcement have contributed to a dramatic drop in the number of pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries in the past 41 ASC years since the inception of the Commission. Designing safe streets will continue to be a top priority for the Shirekeep Reconstruction Commission.
- - Prioritize safety for all street users, particularly more vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, those with disabilities) and more vulnerable modes (walking, bicycling).
- Design local streets for slower speeds to reduce the number of crashes and to discourage cut-through traffic.
- Research, test, and evaluate innovative safety treatments, particularly those successfully adopted in other cities.
Street designs should provide efficient ways to move people and goods and improve the economic vitality of Shirekeep, but not at the expense of safety and community needs; street designs should therefore balance access within neighborhoods with mobility through them.
- - Provide safe, accessible, convenient, and comfortable facilities for walking, bicycling, and transit, particularly on designated routes and at critical network connections.
- Accommodate truck traffic and deliveries while minimizing their negative impacts on neighborhoods.
- Meet or exceed appropriate standards for accessible design for facilities in the public right-of-way.
- Accommodate emergency vehicle access.
Streets help define the character of neighborhoods. Except for standard furniture, materials, and lighting, a street’s design should interact with the surrounding
context, including its history, land uses, and nearby landmarks.
- - Preserve the unique character of Shirekeep's neighborhoods.
- Support connections to adjacent land uses by providing gathering spaces and pedestrian access to and from major destinations.
- Maintain aesthetic consistency within neighborhoods and corridors.
Beyond their use for moving people and goods, streets comprise an extensive network of public open spaces that can facilitate social, civic, and economic interactions.
- - Expand usable public open space by reallocating underutilized roadway space for pedestrian plazas, expanded sidewalks, corner and mid-block curb extensions, and opportunities for green planted areas.
- Design streets to encourage physical activity for all ages and populations by making walking, bicycling, and transit attractive and convenient.
- Design local streets to be traffic-calmed environments that encourage walking, bicycling, and recreational activities.
- Expand the availability of public seating and bicycle racks.
Streets present an extraordinary opportunity to improve the environmental health of Shirekeep. Collaborate across agencies in testing, evaluating, and standardizing new materials so that streets are constructed in an environmentally sound way, and respond effectively to more frequent intense storms and catastrophic weather events.
- - Minimize impermeable surfaces and maximize vegetation on streets. Street designs should use stormwater source controls wherever possible.
- Utilize resilient materials that can withstand periodic temporary inundation by both fresh and salt water.
- Reduce streets’ rate of heat absorption by maximizing tree canopy cover.
- Minimize the overall lifecycle energy use and pollution associated with projects, including the extraction, transportation, construction, maintenance, and
replacement of materials.
The reconstruction of city streets throughout the life of the Shirekeep Reconstruction project required substantial financial resources. Despite the great strides in progress by the Shirekeep Reconstruction Commission, there are still many worthy projects competing for a limited pool of funding. Street designs need to be cost-effective.
- - Consider not only up-front capital costs, but also full lifecycle costs and benefits; certain options may cost more up front, but may have lower ongoing maintenance and operations costs and/or provide long-term benefits.
- Design streets to meet Shirekeep’s future needs. Because streets are reconstructed infrequently, consideration of future conditions and needs should be part of the planning process.
- Maintain a clear and consistent design-review process to streamline project review.
- Establish well-considered and clearly defined goals early in project development and focus on meeting those goals throughout planning and design.