New York City has published its first Street Design Manual

New York City has published its first Street Design Manual, and it’s winning praise from urbanists. In a review on the Design Observer website, Jeff Speck, an urban planning consultant based in Washington, DC, wrote that the 232-page publication “is written well and simply” and provides an “unerringly even-handed treatment” of a broad range of solutions.

Produced by an interagency task force led by the city’s Department of Transportation, the manual offers detailed guidance on geometry, materials, lighting, and street furniture, and provides descriptions, benefits, and constraints of particular applications — ranging from varied uses of concrete and asphalt, to layout of bus lanes, raised speed-reducers, greening, medians, and sidewalks.

DOT says the goal is to create streets that are safe, durable, and designed to suit varied activities, needs, and communities. The manual is intended for government staff, design professionals, community groups, and other entities involved in planning and designing streets in New York. New urbanists who have looked at the publication say it  should be useful in many other communities as well.

The text is organized into four sections: using the manual, geometry, materials, and lighting. “Where a recommended practice is not yet built locally,” Speck notes, “a peripatetic photographer has spanned the globe (or the internet), so we see rain gardens from Portland, integral curbs from Miami Beach and imprinted asphalt from Taranto, Italy.” The manual (Item No. 10113) is available in a loose-leaf binder for $35 from CityStore at http://a856-citystore.nyc.gov. It can be downloaded free as a PDF document at www.nyc.gov/streetdesignmanual.