SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF A STREET SECTION DEPENDING ON THE NATURE OF USE

Abstract

This Article considers ways of optimization of street cross-section profiles in big cities in order to create comfortable urban environment. Importance of the topic has arisen from reconsideration of the role of street-and-road networks in cities, and their transformation from zones of transit into public space and city-life concentration zones. The article presents an analysis of regulatory documents and research works on design and layout of cross-section profile elements. It includes results of field survey and urban development analyses of Yekaterinburg city streets carried out with the purpose to identify problems of current street-and-road networks in major cities and actual street space distribution among users. The Article shows key users of the city streets, as well as requirements to cross-section profile elements. The proposed approach to street-space reorganization offers assignment of ‘user importance index’, which determines the cross-section profile elements. The ‘user importance index’ characterizes use of a street section by a specific user. The criteria by which the «index of importance» of each group of street section users is determined are described. The concluding part of the Article describes one of the cross-section profiles developed for Yekaterinburg using the given approach. It also includes approbation of the mentioned research in the course of work on Standards for Complex Street-and-Road Network Improvement in Yekaterinburg.