Urban Street Design Training Course: Safe, Multimodal Streets for City Transport Leaders

Programme Summary

Urban street design is the subject of this one-week training course for city transport leaders, planning officers and road safety managers, taught at managerial level and ending in a street redesign brief for one corridor. Many cities still set street widths for vehicle flow alone, while people walking, cycling and boarding buses carry most of the risk. The programme moves from street principles to diagnosis of a corridor, then to design choices and application, using prepared cases from two city districts. Mars Training Centre UK delivers this programme on urban street design to mixed-organisation cohorts.

The Business Case

Leaders who can read a street as a system, weigh space between users and test a design against safety and transit performance make firmer decisions on projects, budgets and public consultation. Urban street design also gives engineers and planners a shared language for settling disputes over lane space from counts, speeds and crash records. The programme works on these measures.

• Road Casualties: Fall when speeds, crossings and junction layouts are matched to the people using the street.
• Transit Journey Reliability: Improves when bus priority and stop design are planned with the street.
• Project Rework: Reduces when options are tested against agreed criteria before approval.

Principles and Evidence Base

• NACTO Urban Street Design Guide: street elements and intersections, applied in Sessions 1 and 3 to set corridor design choices.
• NACTO Transit Street Design Guide: transit streets and stops, applied in Session 3 to plan bus priority.
• NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide: bike lanes and cycle tracks, applied in Session 3 to choose a bikeway type.
• NACTO Global Street Design Guide: street design for people, applied in Session 1 to frame street purpose.

Intended Participants

• Transport and planning leaders who decide how street space is shared between users.
• Road safety managers who review crash patterns and speed management measures.
• Project directors who approve street redesign schemes.
• Municipal engineers who turn design guidance into local standards.

Typical settings include city transport agencies, planning departments and public transit operators.

Learning Outcomes

1. Participants will be able to evaluate a street against the needs of walking, cycling, transit and freight users.
2. Participants will be able to diagnose safety and delay problems at a corridor and its junctions.
3. Participants will be able to select speed management measures that suit the street function.
4. Participants will be able to construct options for crossings, bikeways and transit priority.
5. Participants will be able to prioritise street options with agreed criteria and a staged delivery plan.
6. Participants will be able to justify a street redesign brief to a city transport committee.

Programme Structure

Day 1: Urban Street Design Foundations and Street Purpose

What is a street for, and who does its design have to serve?

• Street as Public Space Framing
• User Hierarchy and Space Allocation Grid
• Street Typology Classification Sheet
• Vision for Safe Streets Statement
• Corridor Baseline Data Sheet

Day 2: Reading a Corridor: Safety, Speed and Delay

What do counts, speeds and crash records show about how a corridor works?

• Crash Pattern Mapping
• Speed and Severity Relationship Chart
• Pedestrian Desire Line Survey
• Junction Conflict Point Review
• Bus Delay and Reliability Log

Day 3: Design Choices: Junctions, Bikeways and Transit Streets

Which design elements fit each part of the corridor, and what do they cost in space?

• Intersection Layout and Crossing Options
• Speed Management Toolkit Selection
• Bikeway Type Selection Matrix
• Bus Lane and Stop Design Options
• Interim Design Trial Plan

Day 4: Appraisal, Consultation and Delivery Planning

How are street options compared, explained to the public and delivered in stages?

• Option Scoring Against Agreed Criteria
• Space Trade-Off Test
• Public Consultation Briefing Pack
• Staged Delivery and Budget Sheet
• Before and After Monitoring Plan

Day 5: Street Redesign Brief for One Corridor

Do the earlier tools join into a brief that a transport committee can approve?

• Applying the Session 1 User Hierarchy Grid
• Testing the Session 2 Crash Pattern Map
• Checking the Session 3 Option Matrix
• Reviewing the Session 4 Scoring Sheet
• Completing the Street Redesign Brief

Methodology

The programme is a structured exercise built on prepared cases from a city centre district and a suburban arterial road: counts, speeds, crash maps, cross-sections and bus timetables. Participants read the evidence, test street options in small groups and defend their choices to peers acting as a city transport committee.

• Suggested activity: Redrawing a four-lane road cross-section for walking, cycling and buses.
• Suggested activity: Choosing crossing and speed measures for a school frontage.
• Suggested activity: Scoring three corridor options against shared criteria.

Capstone Output

Each participant completes a street redesign brief for one corridor. It holds a corridor baseline, a user hierarchy, a crash and speed diagnosis, a preferred option and a staged delivery plan. At work it goes to the transport committee for approval and becomes the reference against which the finished scheme is monitored.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is urban street design training suitable for leaders who are not highway engineers?

Yes. Urban street design is taught through cases and templates; you need responsibility for streets or road safety, not drawing skills.

Which guides does urban street design rest on in this training?

Urban street design here rests on the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide, the Transit Street Design Guide, the Urban Bikeway Design Guide and the Global Street Design Guide.

How is the brief from urban street design training used at work?

You take the street redesign brief to your transport committee and use its diagnosis to justify design choices.

How does urban street design differ from a programme on road maintenance management?

Urban street design concentrates on how street space is shared and made safe for all users, while a programme on road maintenance management concentrates on pavement condition and repair timing.