Street catalogue

The catalogue provides a visual and numeric reference to streets and the human movement and life that takes place on them. Juxtaposing pedestrian-, vehicle- and bicycle-counts on specific streets with corresponding videos, it aims to develop a sense of intuition about what the numbers behind modal counts on streets feel like to an observer on the ground. Diagrams and downloadable PDF case-studies of the named streets provide a more detailed contextual description and history of each analyzed case. Toggling the column headers and minimum - maximum indicators on the right, enables you to filter out case-studies, where modal counts or modal capacities fall within specific numeric ranges. Read more

Submit street
Case ID
Country
City
Street name
Date & Time
People on Foot/h
People on Bike/h
People in Vehicles/h
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
From
To
From
To
min
max
min
max
min
max
min
max
min
max
min
max
16th Street
#1 · Denver, CO, USA
16:00
19/03/2018
684
People on Foot/h
6
People on Bike/h
738
People in Vehicles/h
25000
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
0
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
12000
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
16th Street is located in the downtown area of County of Denver, Colorado creating the strong axis between the two major rail stations in Denver - Union station (DEN) and City Center park station. Union station railway is the major regional infrastructure for the commuters from remoted region around Denver that brings them directly to CBD area of downtown Denver. Therefore, while the most of the parrallel streets that connect those two stations are having a lot of human traffic but 16th street become the main street because it links directly from the station exit to another and its free-ride shuttle bus that runs along the street.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Hyeji Sheen, Solomon Green-Eames, Vivek Hv
Bowery Street
#2 · New York, NY, USA
15:00
17/03/2018
3500
People on Foot/h
60
People on Bike/h
2746
People in Vehicles/h
20000
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
5600
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
13420
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood is known for its rich culture and active commercial landscape. New York City has the largest Chinese population of any city outside of Asia, and, although many immigrants are now residing in Flushing, Queens and other nearby neighborhoods, Manhattan’s historic Chinatown remains the heart of the region’s Chinese diaspora. One of Chinatown’s most trafficked North-South arteries is the Bowery. As one of New York’s oldest streets, it has linked Manhattan neighborhoods since the city’s inception.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Mojdeh Mahdavi, Nerali Patel, Emma Pattiz
Brattle Street
#3 · Cambridge, MA, USA
12:02
24/03/2018
1308
People on Foot/h
48
People on Bike/h
1102
People in Vehicles/h
12000
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
4700
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
1320
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
Brattle street is one of the busiest street in the prestigous Harvard Square. The stretch of Brattle Street from Brattle Square to Fresh Pond is one of the most well-preserved and historic strips of Cambridge. It is the site of many buildings of historic interest. Between 1805 and 1812, a decision was carried out to straighten the end of Brattle Street, where it joins Mount Auburn Street. As a result, the Brattle Street of today is different from the original Watertown highway. As the 19th century lengthened, Brattle Street continued to attract wealthy families who built houses in the newest architectural styles. Nowadays, during the summer months, Harvard Square and Brattle Square are popular spaces for many street performers and buskers.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Chenglong Zhao, Yang Huang, Kun Zhang
East Broadway
#4 · Somerville, MA, USA
13:45
25/03/2018
280
People on Foot/h
8
People on Bike/h
1790
People in Vehicles/h
18000
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
5600
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
13000
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
East Broadway connects Route 28 (McGrath Highway) and Sullivan Square. Originally conceived in the 1990’s, the East Broadway Streetscape Improvement project was developed as part of a larger stormwater management effort to separate sewer and rainwater beneath East Broadway. In addition to infrastructure upgrades, the project introduced a “road diet” that reduced the number of travel lanes from four to two and redistributed the available right-of-way for cyclists and pedestrians. The city began aligning funding in 2007. They broke ground in late 2012 and completed the project in 2014.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Lena Ferguson, Laura Krull, Angelica Quicksey
Kenmore Square
#5 · Boston, MA, USA
9:15
06/03/2018
856
People on Foot/h
136
People on Bike/h
5288
People in Vehicles/h
20700
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
3750
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
13700
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
Kenmore Square is the 2nd busiest intersection in Boston, Massachusetts - just south of the Charles River, it is the commercial crossroads of Commonwealth Avenue, Brookline Avenue, and Beacon Street and surrounds the Kenmore Green Line T stop and bus stop. It is the eastern terminus of U.S. Route 20, the longest U.S. Highway and the location of 25th mile of the Boston Marathon. Today, the square is probably best known for its association with the Boston Red Sox. Just over the turnpike, less than 350 yards south of the Square are Fenway Park and Lansdowne Street, a center of Boston nightlife.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Jannet Arevalo, Foteini Bouliari, Nicole Adler
Linden Alley
#6 · San Francisco, CA, USA
15:30
05/04/2018
59
People on Foot/h
4
People on Bike/h
12
People in Vehicles/h
7200
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
0
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
1650
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
Linden Alley, the 300 block of Linden Street in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, is 100-feet of oasis that opened in 2010 after five years of a community-led effort to re-design the block. In 2005, two individuals who worked above the alley began talking about the possibility of re-designing the street in the style of a Netherland’s woonerf. The street, considered an alley, was in the central neighborhood Hayes Valley between Gough Street and Octavia Boulevard, in walking distance to Civic Center, the Fillmore District, and the bustle of business along Market Street. The area was known for loitering, drug use, and public urination.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Ana Garcia, Alifa Putri, Jill Schmidt
Peabody Square
#7 · Boston, MA, USA
15:50
16/03/2018
176
People on Foot/h
0
People on Bike/h
2295
People in Vehicles/h
18000
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
3750
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
3800
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
In 2010, spearheaded by community activism, the City of Boston completed a redesigned Peabody Square in Dorchester. The redesign has successfully improved safety and pedestrian access, has provided much-needed new public space and included innovative storm water management systems. The project, while small in scope, has become a significant asset to the surrounding community and an important demonstration project for Boston’s complete streets initiatives.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Claire Summers, Mark Bennett, Ben Sadkowski
Seaport District
#8 · Boston, MA, USA
13:00
24/03/2018
536
People on Foot/h
8
People on Bike/h
1329
People in Vehicles/h
8400
People on Foot/h (Capacity)
0
People on Bike/h (Capacity)
4840
People in Vehicles/h (Capacity)
The Seaport district lies at the heart of Boston and is currently enjoying a renaissance as the fastest growing urban area in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Seaport attracted ten million square feet of development between 2000 and 2013, with more than 4,100 new residents and 7,700 new jobs. Over this period the area has emerged as a unique combination of a vital industrial port, an artistic and cultural center of national importance and a hub for innovation in finance, legal, technology and biomedical research. Today, Seaport district is also selected as AV testing area in Boston.
Download data as PDF file
Video by: Arjun Menon, Amirah S. Ndam Njoya, Aaron Ramirez


About


This catalog is compiled by graduate students in DES-3353 "Advanced Seminar in City Form: Future of Streets" at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The videos, filmed by students, describe typical use patterns of streets during indicated weekdays and times. The video material was used to count pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles using the street, indicated as people per hour (see details below). Corresponding modal capacity estimates are explained below. A PDF case-study of each street can be downloaded to the left of each video, offering a more detailed context and history of each case-study street. Indicator ranges for numeric values in right-hand-side columns can be adjusted by toggling and sorting the column headers.

People on foot per hour

Observed number of pedestrians per hour, counted from the video. Values are interpolated from 15- or 30-minute counts.

People on bike per hour

Observed number of bicyclists per hour, counted from the video. Values are interpolated from 15- or 30-minute counts.

People in vehicles per hour

Observed number of cars, trucks or buses per hour, counted from the video. Following average trip characteristics from the National Household Travel Survey, each car is assumed to carry 1.67 people and each bus is assumed to carry 9.2 people.

People on foot per hour (Capacity)

Pedestrian capacity estimates reflect the assumed maximum number of pedestrians that can travel through the given street profile without uncomfortable congestion, assuming 9,000 people per hour per 9-foot sidewalk. The numbers are adjusted according to the width of observed space for each mode. See the typical assumptions diagram below for reference.

People on bike per hour (Capacity) 

Bicycle capacity estimates reflect the assumed maximum number of bicyclists that can travel through the given street profile without uncomfortable congestion, assuming 3,750 bikes per hour per 9-foot bike lane. The numbers are adjusted according to the width of observed space for each mode. See the typical assumptions diagram below for reference.

People on vehicle per hour (Capacity)

Vehicle capacity estimates reflect the assumed maximum number of people that can travel using cars, buses, trucks or other types of vehicles through a given street profile without uncomfortable congestion. We assumed 1,100 people in cars per direction per hour per lane and 6,000 people in an exclusive bus lane per direction per hour per lane. The numbers are adjusted according to the width of observed space for each mode. See the typical assumptions diagram below for reference.

Typical modal capacity assumptions

The typical diagram below, inspired by work done by Nelson/Nygaard and Perkins+Will, explains the modal capacity assumptions graphically.