Main Street
LOC-MST-05 Main Street
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?
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.
South Carolina's Freeway for Bikes
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.
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
Modal hierarchy
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
Related patterns
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
- Precedent-based NACTO, Urban Street Design Guide, "Neighborhood Main Street."