Avenues and Boulevards

The grand streets of a city play a critical role in moving people from one neighborhood to another and connecting to central areas. These include large iconic boulevards, downtown shopping streets, distinctive avenues, transit streets, or central thoroughfares lined with commercial activities. Grand streets are often designed with the primary goal of moving a large number of vehicles at relatively high speeds, creating a daunting environment for pedestrians and cyclists. They divide neighborhoods, reduce the quality of the public realm, and reduce the potential value of adjacent properties.

As grand streets typically include some of the widest and most continuous streets in a city, they offer ideal opportunities to create multimodal corridors that reconnect neighborhoods and communities.

Prioritizing sustainable transit through street design increases the street’s capacity to move more people and creates more space for additional activities. Such streets can accommodate commercial activity, improved public spaces, and sustainable environments that benefit the surrounding communities.

Design grand streets to support their immediate contexts and desired future conditions.