Commonway
Version V. 2026.09.26

Search the guidebook

Main Street

LOC-MST-05
Recommended Local

Main Street

A Local street lined with retail and commercial frontage, where pedestrian movement and lingering are treated as primary and vehicle movement is subordinate.

Related Media

The items below come from outside the Commonway System, external videos, podcasts, and articles related to this page's topic, not part of the guidebook itself.

Are Streets Too Complicated Now? Aligned

Are Streets Too Complicated Now?

City Beautiful

Asks whether today's proliferation of lines, signals, and lane types on streets is overcomplication or a needed response to modern demands, a question that runs directly through CS's Element-scale catalog and the density-tiered Corridor retrofit paths this video is tagged to.

(opens in new tab)
South Carolina's Freeway for Bikes Aligned

South Carolina's Freeway for Bikes

Road Guy Rob

The Swamp Rabbit Trail's rail-to-trail history and its treatment as genuine transportation infrastructure, plus the Travelers Rest Main Street road diet that reallocated car lanes to parking and bike parking.

(opens in new tab)

Typical at: Compact Urban

Rural, Suburban, and Core are edge cases: a small-town pattern at Rural, less common at Suburban, and tapering at Core where retail frontage folds into larger mixed-use blocks. Undeveloped is an unlikely pairing.

#Speed and modal hierarchy

Design speed & speed limit

SPEEDLIMIT20
Follows the Local default: 20 mph hard maximum, no exceptions.

See Design Speed & Speed Limits.

Modal hierarchy

Pedestrian Transit Bicycle Vehicle Freight
This ordering is a judgment call, reasoned from the Typology's purpose rather than derived cleanly from a listed override trigger, and is open for correction.

#Design notes

Main Street is the clearest case where a Local street's identity comes from its edge condition, retail frontage, rather than from a special traffic control treatment. It shares its defining density range with Stroad, the Arterial-scale pattern for commercial frontage done wrong.1

Stroad (Commercial Arterial) (ART-STD-05) (shares this pattern's defining density range), Downtown Thoroughfare (COL-DTH-07) (the Collector-scale pattern for a comparable commercial-thoroughfare hybrid)

#Getting there: Retrofit path options

One-way to two-way conversion (RFT-CDR-04)

#References

  1. Precedent-based NACTO, Urban Street Design Guide, "Neighborhood Main Street."(opens in new tab)

Suggest changes to this page (opens in new tab) Text-only version Last updated September 26, 2026

© 2026 Commonway System