Street
Originally, the word street simply meant a
Etymology
The word street has its origins in the Latin
Role in the built environment
The street is a public easement, one of the few shared between all sorts of people. As a component of the built environment as ancient as human habitation, the street sustains a range of activities vital to civilization. Its roles are as numerous and diverse as its ever-changing cast of characters.
Streets can be loosely categorized as
Circulation
Circulation, or less broadly,
In the interest of order and efficiency, an effort may be made to segregate different types of traffic. This is usually done by carving a
). In the mid-20th century, as the automobile threatened to overwhelm city streets with pollution and ghastly accidents, many urban theorists came to see this segregation as not only helpful but necessary in order to maintain mobility.Le Corbusier, for one, perceived an ever-stricter segregation of traffic as an essential affirmation of social order—a desirable, and ultimately inevitable, expression of modernity. To this end, proposals were advanced to build "vertical streets" where road vehicles, pedestrians, and trains would each occupy their own levels. Such an arrangement, it was said, would allow for even denser development in the future.
These plans were never implemented comprehensively, a fact which today's urban[
Transportation is often misunderstood to be the defining characteristic, or even the sole purpose, of a street. This has not been the case since the word "street" came to be limited to urban situations, and even in the automobile age, is still demonstrably false. A street may be temporarily blocked to all through traffic in order to secure the space for other uses, such as a street fair, a flea market, children at play, filming a movie, or construction work. Many streets are bracketed by bollards or Jersey barriers so as to keep out vehicles. These measures are often taken in a city's busiest areas, the "destination" districts, when the volume of activity outgrows the capacity of private passenger vehicles to support it. A feature universal to all streets is a human-scale design that gives its users the space and security to feel engaged in their surroundings, whatever through traffic may pass.
Vehicular traffic
Despite this, the operator of a motor vehicle may (incompletely) regard a street as merely a thoroughfare for vehicular travel or parking. As far as concerns the driver, a street can be one-way or two-way: vehicles on one-way streets may travel in only one direction, while those on two-way streets may travel both ways. One way streets typically have signs reading "ONE WAY" and an arrow showing the direction of allowed travel. Most two-way streets are wide enough for at least two lanes of traffic.
Which lane is for which
Parking for vehicles
Many streets, especially
Sidewalk and bicycle traffic
Sidewalks (US usage) or pavements (UK usage) are often located alongside on one or usually both sides of the street within the public land strips beyond the curbs. Sidewalks serve a traffic purpose, by making walking easier and more attractive, but they also serve a social function, allowing neighbors to meet and interact on their walks. They also can foster economic activity, such as window shopping and sidewalk cafes. Some studies have found that shops on streets with sidewalks get more customers than similar shops without sidewalks.[7]
An important element of sidewalk design is accessibility for persons with disabilities. Features that make sidewalks more accessible include
In most jurisdictions, bicycles are legally allowed to use streets, and required to follow the same traffic laws as motor vehicle traffic. Where the volume of bicycle traffic warrants and available right-of-way allows, provisions may be made to separate cyclists from motor vehicle traffic. Wider lanes may be provided next to the curb, or shoulders may be provided.
The bicycle lane may be placed between the travel lanes and the parking lanes, between the parking lanes and the curb, or for increased safety for cyclists, between curb and sidewalk. These poorer designs can lead to Dooring incidents and are unsafe for cycling.
A more sensible design is found in the Netherlands with a Protected Bicycle Path totally separate from the traffic which is safe for cycling.
Tramlines
Vehicular amenities and roadside hardware
Often, a
Landscaping
There may be a
Utilities
Although primarily used for traffic, streets are important corridors for utilities such as electric power; communications such as telephone, cable television and fiber optic lines; storm and
Street numbering
Practically all public streets in Western countries and the majority elsewhere (though not in Japan; see
Interaction
A street may assume the role of a
Identity
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with North America and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (February 2024) |
Some streets are associated with the beautification of a town or city. Greenwood, Mississippi's Grand Boulevard was once named one of America's ten most beautiful streets by the U.S. Chambers of Commerce and the Garden Clubs of America. The 1,000 oak trees lining Grand Boulevard were planted in 1916 by Sally Humphreys Gwin, a charter member of the Greenwood Garden Club. In 1950, Gwin received a citation from the National Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution in recognition of her work in the conservation of trees.[9][10]
Streets also tend to aggregate establishments of similar nature and character.
As distinct from other spaces
A road, like a street, is often paved and used for travel. However, a street is characterized by the degree and quality of the street life[11] which it facilitates, whereas a road serves primarily as a through-passage for
In
A
Nomenclature
There is a haphazard relationship, at best, between a thoroughfare's function and its name. For example, London's
In the United Kingdom the inhabitants of many towns will refer to their main thoroughfare as the High Street (in the United States and Canada it would be called the Main Street—however, occasionally "Main Street" in a city or town is a street other than the de facto main thoroughfare), and many of the ways leading off it will be named "Road" despite the urban setting. Thus the town's so-called "Roads" will actually be more like streets than like road.
Some streets may even be called "highways", even though they may carry no highway designation at all: This may arise when an historic road that was built to connect distant towns was named a "street" but originally never was in the truest sense. Some roads of this type which later became designated as numbered highways, became identified as said highway and may continue to
In some other English-speaking countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, cities are often divided by a main "Road", with "Streets" leading from this "Road", or the cities are divided by thoroughfares known as "Streets" or "Roads" with no apparent differentiation between the two. In Auckland in New Zealand, for example, the main shopping precinct is located around Queen Street and Karangahape Road.
Streets have existed for as long as humans have lived in permanent settlements[13] (see
In an even narrower sense, some may think of a street as only the vehicle-driven and parking part of the thoroughfare. Thus, sidewalks (pavements) and road verges would not be thought of as part of the street. A mother may tell her toddlers, "Don't go out into the street, so you don't get hit by a car."
Among urban residents of the English-speaking world, the word "street" appears to carry only some of its original etymological connotations (i.e., the facilitation of traffic as a prime purpose, and "street life" as an incidental benefit). For instance, a New York Times writer lets casually slip the observation that automobile-laden
At least one map has been made to illustrate the geography of naming conventions for thoroughfares - comparing and contrasting "avenue", "boulevard", "circle", "road", "street", and other labels.[15]
Culture
Streets may be used as cultural spaces, for socializing and
In India, some cities have designated one or more streets as "happy street" or "fun street", closing them for motor traffic for a few hours or a day, in order to make it possible for the inhabitants to use their street for recreational activities. Cities implementing this initiative include Kolkata[16] Madurai,[17] Visakhapatnam[18] and Bangalore.[19]
In the United States, "open street" events have been arranged in Detroit[20] and New York City.[21]
See also
- Alley
- Built environment
- City bicycle
- Complete streets
- Cycling infrastructure
- Intersection
- Lane; Green lane (road)
- Living street
- Manual for Streets (in the UK)
- Spreuerhofstraße (world's narrowest street)
- Pedestrian-friendly
- Auto-free zone
- Protected intersection
- Road
- Shopping street
- Street furniture
- Street reclamation
- Street suffix
- Street Vendor
- Trams
- Urban car
- Woonerf
References
- ^ Dictionary.
- ^ Road vs Street at Using English forum.
- ^ Avenue vs Street at Using English forum.
- ^ History of English, Jonathan Culpeper, Routledge 1997, p. 2
- ^ Guest, Edwin (1852). "On certain Foreign Terms, adopted by our Ancestors prior to their Settlement in the British Islands (Pt. II)". Proceedings of the Philological Society. 5 (124): 188.
- ^ "Online Etymology". Retrieved 2006-11-14.
- ^ "Economic Revitalization". Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "Tram – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". merriam-webster.com. Archived from the original on 9 April 2015.
- ^ "NewspaperArchive® - Genealogy & Family History Records". www.newspaperarchive.com.
- ^ Kirkpatrick, Mario Carter. Mississippi Off the Beaten Path. GPP Travel, 2007.
- ^
Nevola, Fabrizio (24 November 2020). Street Life in Renaissance Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 19. ISBN 9780300175431. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
[...] what is street life? [...] the street can helpfully be understood as a ecosystem [...]. [...] street life as an area of study sets out to cross between the physical and social fabrics of the city and to reveal the nature and degree of interdependence of one upon the other.
- ^
ISBN 9781610914949. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
[...] this design guide emphasizes the core principle that urban streets are public places and have a larger role to play in communities than solely being conduits for traffic.
- ^
For example, archeologists identify streets, alleyways and culs-de-sac in ancient Mesopotamia:
Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea (1998). "City Life". Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" series, ISSN 1080-4749. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 103. ISBN 9780313294976. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
The residential areas were connected by a network of streets, and most homes were entered through narrow alleyways and culs-de-sac
- ^ New York Times article(registration required)
- ^ Bill Rankin (2005). "Vancouver Roads". radicalcartography. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
- ^ Roy, Arjab (2017). "Confronting Epochs: The Many Faces of Colonial and Postcolonial Park Street in Kolkata". Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry. 3 (2): 166–203. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
- ^ Basu, Soma (31 March 2017). "Happiness on the street". The Hindu. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
- ^ "RK Beach to showcase North Coastal traditions". The Hans India. 26 September 2017.
- ^ "Bengaluru: Commercial street becomes 'Happy Street' for a day!". deccanchronicle.com. 28 March 2016.
- ^ "Metro Detroiters drawn to open street festival". detroitnews.com.
- ^ Adams, Erika (25 March 2021). "NYC's Open Streets Program Gears Up for 2021 Run". Eater New York. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
External links
- A virtual exhibition on the history of streets
- AskOxford: What is the difference between a 'street' and a 'road'?
- streetnote, street music Live street music and musicians from the streets of the US
- [1] Biannual exhibition of poetry and documentary about streets and traffic.
- Streetsblog – News focusing on streets and street life in the modern urban landscape. (No affiliation.)
- What distinguishes a street from a lane from a road from a boulevard, etc.? – An Ask Yahoo! editor's examination of the issue.
- A Treatise on Highway Construction, Designed as a Text-book and Work of Reference for All who May be Engaged in the Location, Construction, Or Maintenance of Roads, Streets, and Pavements, By Austin Thomas Byrne, 1900 – Boston appears to be the first city in the United States to pave its streets, by 1663, many with pebbles.