Every urban street is a unique and evolving organism, and every city has streets across a broad spectrum of contexts. Designing for great streets requires clever and careful balancing of the many demands and activities throughout the day. Streets energize social and economic life. They provide spaces for physical activity. They can be our front yards and living rooms, our parks or nightlife destinations, and our essential circulatory system. Streets must provide at every scale for the many people
walking, cycling, riding collective transport, driving, making deliveries, selling goods, or simply stopping to take a breath. Above all else, streets are places for people, and a city cannot work without human-centered streets.
This guide shifts from a system of functional classification of street types to a context-based approach to street designs.