Urban Street Evaluation Using a Human-Oriented Approach

Street is an important character of public compass and attracts its appropriate quality. Therefore, it is useful to increase the life quality of those who live in or just pass through. From planning viewpoint, street as an urban space, should play a key role in intensifying human activities. Such kind of activities could be mandatory or voluntary depends on the quality of the space. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest a robust methodology for assessing urban streets with a human- oriented approach. The paper proceeds literature review about this theme. Then, some criteria and indicators of urban streets are proposed in three categories of functional, aesthetic- experimental and environmental aspects. A weighting system for these indicators is applied. Finally, Somayyeh Street in Shiraz is evaluated using this method. The result showed that two dimensions of street quality including pedestrian friendliness and traffic calming are of most important features in shaping a human-oriented street.