The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) released Designing Streets for Kids to set a new global baseline for designing urban streets. Designing Streets for Kids builds upon the approach of putting people first, with a focus on the specific needs of babies, children, and their caregivers as pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users in urban streets around the world.
As a program of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) the supplement to NACTO-GDCI’s Global Street Design Guide rethinks street design. Most streets were not built with children in mind, and current street conditions in many places are unwelcoming and unsafe for kids. Traffic crashes kill 1.35 million people every year and they are the leading cause of death for young people ages 5-29. Traffic congestion and vehicle designs can also contribute to dangerously high levels of air pollution, which is responsible for the death of 127,000 children under the age of five each year. Many of these fatalities are preventable, and these numbers can be dramatically reduced through kid-friendly street design.
Designing Streets for Kids is available for free download on the Global Designing Streets Initiative’s website, globaldesigningcities.org.
Read the full article on Arch Daily
Author: Eric Baldwin
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