“Creating Real Spaces for People”: Emerging Standards for Intermodal Design

Abstract

Prytherch explores how principles of “Complete Streets” are increasingly matched by intermodal design practices, which provide alternatives to traditional engineering manuals. The chapter first reviews American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) bicycle and pedestrian guidance, and then the new bicycle-specific signage, markings, and signals in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). But the most profound reimagining of the street can be found in the emergence of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), which has developed its own bicycle and Urban Street Design Guide as an alternative to “highway engineering,” which is both more intermodal and sensitive to urban, community context. And it surveys new pedestrian- and bicycle-specific approaches to the measurement of roadway performance. This chapter argues for the power of new intermodal and context-specific design to produce a more just street.