Global Street Design Guide now available in Turkish
Urban designers in Turkey seeking inspiration for creating more child-friendly cities can now benefit from a newly-translated version of the acclaimed Global Street Design Guide.
The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GCDI), a program of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), has produced a Turkish version of the guide, which has insightful ideas for designing cities with children’s needs in mind.
The guide was put together with the input of experts from 72 cities in 42 countries and offers international case studies and technical details to inform street design that prioritises, among others, children, pedestrians and cyclists.
First published in 2016, the guide has received the endorsement of dozens of cities and organisations, and been downloaded more than 32,000 times from the NACTO-GDCI website. The GDCI says that, for city leaders and practitioners, endorsing the guide can serve as a ‘permission slip,’ enabling them to shift their approach to urban street design, and to better align their strategies with global agendas such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. These goals aim to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” by addressing intersecting issues such as transportation, planning, disaster risk reduction, environmental impact, and public space.
‘Real-world solutions and practical strategies’
The guide has also recently been supplemented with the Designing Streets for Kids publication, which puts the focus squarely on the needs of babies, children and their caregivers as pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.
Skye Duncan, Director of GDCI, said: “Streets are one of our largest untapped assets in cities and we have an incredible opportunity to reimagine and redesign these spaces to serve so many more people and functions than they do today. Change can be hard for cities to face but this guide facilitates that change by offering real-world solutions and practical strategies to support more resilient and sustainable streets that improve health, safety, and quality of life for everyone in a fair and equitable way.”
Tahir Büyükakin, mayor of Turkey’s Kocaeli region and president of Marmara Municipalities Union, said: “We have to rethink street design and act collectively in order to achieve healthy, sustainable and vibrant streets. Global Street Design Guide inspires us with different case studies from all around the world and reminds us the importance of learning from each others. This guide is a leading resource for local governments to increase quality of life of their citizens.”
Originally published by Island Press, with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the new Turkish version has been translated with support from Marmara Municipalities Union and the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety. Translations are also available in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Mandarin.
