SAN FRANCISCO (Oct 23, 2014) — The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) announced today that it will develop and publish a new Global Street Design Guide, the first-ever worldwide standard for designing city streets and prioritizing safety, pedestrians, transit and sustainable mobility. The guide is the first project of what will become the Global Designing Cities Program, a multi-year initiative to provide guidance on street and public space design to cities around the world. Making streets safer is a critical global public health priority, with 1.2 million people dying annually in motor vehicle crashes. The new NACTO Global Designing Cities program is supported as part of the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety.
The Guide will build off the successful tools and tactics defined in NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide, which has already been endorsed by 40 cities and seven states in North America and by the Federal Highway Administration. Before this guide, there was no accepted standard for many of the innovative designs being used by increasing numbers of cities, and with previous guides becoming outdated or focused on highways and inapplicable to city streets. There is no international standard for road design and many nations often have contradictory, confusing or dangerous practices in street projects in different cities that also stifle the quality of life and economic performance of streets. The guide will outline innovative designs across the world to address a variety of international issues and contexts.
“Cities around the world are facing the same challenges as cities in the US, and many of these problems are rooted in outdated street design standards,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the Chair of NACTO and Principal of Transportation at Bloomberg Associates. “This guide will help cities unlock their streets’ potential as safe, accessible and economically sustainable places.”
“With 1.2 million people dying from traffic fatalities each year, the design of our streets plays a critical role in shaping how safe they are for people to use each day,” said Edward Reiskin, President of NACTO and Director of Transportation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).
“Cities in the US are leading the movement to redesign our most fundamental form of public open space and this is a great opportunity for us to support cities around the world in their visions for gold standard 21st Century streets,” said Skye Duncan, Global Street Design Director at NACTO. “The decisions cities make in designing streets can in turn shape public health and safety, economic development, environmental quality and quality of life for those who use them each day.”
The guide will look at a variety of street typologies and design elements in various contexts around the world and help leaders to realize their visions for their cities.
NACTO is an association of 38 cities in the U.S. and Canada formed to exchange transportation ideas, insights and practices and cooperatively approach national transportation issues. The new Global Designing Cities Program will launch the organization’s work with an international audience.