ARTISTS - Arterial streets for people: Guidance for planners and decision makers when reconstructing arterial streets.

Conventional guidance on the design and management of urban roads and streets has tended to focus on either arterial roads or local access streets. There is currently a lack of a clear, consistent approach to the design of arterial streets, which combine both significant through traffic and urban place functions. This report aims to address this gap, by setting out an approach to the design and management of arterial streets - from a people-oriented perspective. This means that:• As users of the street, people – rather than vehicles - are taken as the startingpoint for the analysis and redesign of street-space; and• As local stakeholders, people are taken into account and included in the design and management process.In addressing people’s use of streets for a diversity of urban functions – and not just motor traffic movement - the aim is to achieve streets that offer a more positive contribution to sustainability, in all its economic, social and environmental dimensions.This report encourages new ways of thinking about how arterial streets areconceptualised, designed and managed, as part of the overall street system. This requires a rethinking of how the various functions of the arterial street are reconciled and provided for; and involves addressing the processes by which street-space is allocated, the ways in which design options are generated, and how options are selected for implementation.A series of ways of addressing the ‘arterial streets for people’ theme arerecommended, including:• Recognising that arterial streets satisfy the needs of both ‘through users’ and‘locale users’;• Developing a functional classification of street sections based on twoindependent dimensions: ‘link status’ and ‘place status’;• Incorporating public participation at each stage of the redesign process,including contributions to functional classification, visioning, generatingdesigns, and option selection; and• Suggesting a process for problem identification, objective setting, optiongeneration and assessment.The guidance in this report is based on experience and research from the European Commission project ARTISTS (Arterial Streets Towards Sustainability). This project has drawn on a series of street case studies in seven European countries, as well as learning from research and practice elsewhere.The report is aimed primarily at city authorities and other policy makers, practitioners and consultants with responsibility for the design and management of streets. It gives general guidance on concepts and techniques, which may be adapted to fit the relevant national or city context. (Less)