A city-centre street in Frankfurt, Germany
A street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in
an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can
be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete,
cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with
asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to
accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.
The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", but city
residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is
transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction.[1][2]
Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and
city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to
pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads,
but few would refer to them as streets.[3][4]
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 main streets and side
streets. Main streets are usually broad with a relatively high level of activity. Commerce and public interaction are more
visible on main streets, and vehicles may use them for longer-distance travel. Side streets are quieter, often residential in use
and character, and may be used for vehicular parking.
Rue Saint-Jacques, a street in Montreal, 1910
Circulation
Circulation, or less broadly, transportation, is perhaps a street's most visible use, and
certainly among the most important. The unrestricted movement of people and goods within a city is essential to its commerce and
vitality, and streets provide the physical space for this activity.
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 road through the middle for motorists, reserving sidewalks on either side for pedestrians; other arrangements allow for streetcars, trolleys, and even wastewater and
rainfall runoff ditches (common in Japan and
India). 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 theorists regard as fortunate for vitality and
diversity. Rather, vertical segregation is applied on a piecemeal basis, as in sewers,
utility poles, depressed highways, elevated railways, common utility ducts, the extensive complex of underground malls surrounding Tokyo Station and the Ōtemachi subway station, the elevated pedestrian
skyway networks of Minneapolis and
Calgary, the underground cities of
Atlanta and Montreal, and the
multilevel streets in Chicago.
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
-
A street full of vehicles in Shanghai
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 direction of traffic depends on what country the
street is located in. On broader two-way streets, there is often a center line marked down the middle of the street separating those lanes on which vehicular traffic goes in one
direction from other lanes in which traffic goes in the opposite direction. Occasionally, there may be a median strip separating lanes of opposing traffic. If there is more than one lane going in one
direction on a main street, these lanes may be separated by intermittent lane lines marked on the street pavement. Side
streets often do not have center lines or lane lines.
Parking for vehicles
-
Many streets, especially side streets in residential areas, have an extra lane's width on
either or both sides for parallel parking. Most minor side streets allowing free
parallel parking do not have pavement markings designating the parking lane. Main streets
more often have parking lanes marked. Some streets are too busy or narrow for parking on the side. Sometimes parking on the sides
of streets is allowed only at certain times. Curbside signs often state regulations about parking. Some streets, particularly in
business areas, may have parking meters into which coins must be paid to allow parking in
the adjacent space for a limited time. Other parking meters work on a credit card and ticket basis or pay and display. Parking lane markings on the pavement may designate the meter corresponding to a
parking space. Some wide streets with light traffic allow angle parking.
Pedestrian traffic and vehicular amenities
Where vehicular traffic is allowed on a street, traffic and parking regulatory signs are
often placed near the sides. Bordering the driving/parking sides of many urban streets, there are curbs. Usually, there are strips of land beyond the driving/parking parts of the streets owned by the
government entity owning the streets. Sidewalks are often located on these public land strips
beyond the curbs on one or usually both sides of the street. There may be an unpaved strip of land between the vehicle-drivable
part of the street and the sidewalk on either side of the street, which can be called the parkway or tree lawn. Grass and trees are often grown there
for landscaping the sides of the street. Alternatively, there may be openings in wider
sidewalks in which trees grow. Streets are often lighted at night with streetlights, which
are typically located far overhead on tall poles. Beyond these public strips of land are bordered the front of lots commonly owned by private parties.
Practically all public streets in Western countries and the majority elsewhere (though not in Japan; see Japanese addressing system) are given a street name or
at least a number to identify them and any addresses located along the streets.
Alleys typically do not have names. The length of a lot of land along a street is referred to as
the frontage of the lot.
Interaction
Streets assume the role of a town square for its regulars. Jane Jacobs, an economist and prominent urbanist, wrote extensively on the ways that interaction among the
people who live and work on a particular street—"eyes on the street"—can reduce crime,
encourage the exchange of ideas, and generally make the world a better place.
Identity
Much as a string in a jar can precipitate a beautiful, delicate crystal, a street can serve
as the catalyst for neighborhood culture and solidarity. New
Orleans’ Bourbon Street is famous not only for its active nightlife but also for its role as the center of the city’s French
Quarter. Similarly, the Bowery has at various times been New York City's theater district, red-light district,
skid row, restaurant supply district, and the center of the nation's underground punk
scene. Madison Avenue and
Fleet Street are so strongly identified with their respective most famous types of
commerce, that their names are sometimes applied to firms located elsewhere. Other streets mark divisions between neighborhoods
of a city. For example, Yonge Street divides Toronto into
east and west sides, and East Capitol Street divides Washington, D.C. into north and south.
Streets also tend to aggregate establishments of similar nature and character. East 9th Street
in Manhattan, for example, offers a cluster of Japanese restaurants, clothing stores, and cultural
venues.[5] In Washington, D.C., 17th Street and P Street
are well-known as epicenters of the city's (relatively small) gay culture.[6] This phenomenon is the subject of urban location theory in
economics.
As distinct from other spaces
Typical street of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London.
A road, like a street, is often paved and used for travel.
However, a street is characterized by the degree and quality of street life it facilitates,
whereas a road serves primarily as a through passage for road vehicles or (less
frequently) pedestrians. Buskers, beggars, boulevardiers, patrons of sidewalk cafés, peoplewatchers, streetwalkers, and a diversity of other
characters are habitual users of a street; the same people would not typically be found on a road.
In rural and suburban environments where street life is rare,
the terms "street" and "road" are frequently considered interchangeable. Still, even here, what is called a "street" is usually a
smaller thoroughfare, such as a road within a housing development feeding directly
into individual driveways. In the last half of the 20th century these streets often abandoned
the tradition of a rigid, rectangular grid, and instead were designed to discourage through traffic. This and other
traffic calming methods provided quiet for families and play space for children.
Adolescent suburbanites find, in attenuated form, the amenities of street life in shopping
malls where vehicles are forbidden.
If a road connects places, then a street connects people. One may "hit the road" to see the wonders of the world—Jack Kerouac famously chronicled one such journey—but the latest bling will "hit the streets"
before it ever appears on a road. It is "on the street" where one hears an interesting rumor,
where one bumps into an old acquaintance, where one acquires smarts. One seldom sees a "road"
vendor except of fresh produce, or a "road" performer. You'll never find yourself on a long "street" to nowhere or under assault
by a violent "road" gang, hence politicians seldom view with alarm the prevalence of "crime in the roads". The street, not the
road is home to the homeless unless they are hoboes, and even Kerouac's hero finally returned to
find his friends on a New York street.
A town square or plaza is a little more like a street, but
a town square is rarely paved with asphalt and may not make any concessions for through traffic
at all.
Nomenclature
-
There is a haphazard relationship, at best, between a thoroughfare's function and its name. For example, London's
Abbey Road serves all the vital functions of a street, despite its name, and locals
are more apt to refer to the "street" outside than the "road". A desolate road in rural Montana,
on the other hand, may bear a sign proclaiming it "Davidson Street", but this does not make it a "street" except in the original
sense of a paved road.
In the United Kingdom many towns will refer to their main thoroughfare as the
High Street (in the United States 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 streetlike than a road.
Some streets may even be seen as highways. Hurontario Street in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, is commonly referred to as
"Highway 10" — even though such a highway designation no longer officially exists.
This is probably due to the fact that the street is a modern suburban arterial that was urbanized after decades of having the
status and function a true highway, so people continued to use the number because of force of habit.
In some other English-speaking countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, cities are often divided by a main "Road," with
"Streets" leading from this "Road", or are divided by thoroughfares known as "Streets" or "Roads" with no apparent
differentiation between the two. In Auckland, for example, the main shopping precinct is around
Queen Street and Karangahape Road.
Streets have existed for as long as humans have lived in permanent settlements (see civilization). However, modern civilization in much of the New World developed around transportation
provided by motor vehicles. In some parts of the English-speaking world, such as North America, many think of the street as a
thoroughfare for vehicular traffic first and foremost. In this view, pedestrian traffic is
incidental to the street's purpose; a street consists of a thoroughfare running through the middle (in essence, a
road), and may or may not have sidewalks along the sides.
In an even narrower sense, some may think of a street as only the vehicle-driven and parking part of the thoroughfare. Thus, sidewalks and tree lawns 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 appears to carry its original 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 Houston
Street is "a street that can hardly be called 'street' anymore, transformed years ago into an eight-lane raceway that
alternately resembles a Nascar event and a parking lot." [1] Published in the paper's Metro section, the article evidently presumes an
audience with an innate grasp of the modern urban role of the street. To the readers of the Metro section, vehicular traffic does
not reinforce, but rather detracts from, the essential "street-ness" of a street.
A residential street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
At least one map has been made to illustrate the geography of naming conventions for thoroughfares; street, avenue, boulevard,
circle, and other suffixes are contrasted against one another.[7]
Etymology
Street has its origins in the Latin strata (meaning "paved road"). Its original use, in Old English applied the word to Roman roads in
Britain such as Ermin Street, Watling
Street, etc. Later it acquired a dialectical meaning of "straggling village", which were often laid out on the verges of
Roman roads. In the middle ages, a road was a way people
travelled, with "street" applied specifically to paved ways.[8]
See also
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References
External links
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