Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares

The Right Fix
Connect Your Streets. Connect Your Communities.

Communities are all about connection. The bond between families, neighbors, business owners, and public servants is shaped by the way a community's streets are situated. Traditional Main Streets, with their vibrant mix of commerce and culture — where mom-and-pop shops line the sidewalks, cars and trucks slow down to share the road with pedestrians and bikes, and people congregate in great gathering spaces — are the most outward expression of the strength of communal ties. As the structure of our streets help pave the way in which our communities connect on a physical, social, and economic level, designing livable, walkable urban thoroughfares is one of the utmost priorities for any city or town.

Luckily, a resource exists to help engineers, planners, elected officials, and concerned citizen activists implement such designs. Produced by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach is a recommended practice for local communities to apply context-sensitive solutions to street design. The manual acts as a how-to document that illustrates best practices for the creation and implementation of walkable, mixed-use streets.

Purchase the manual from the ITE website. It is also available for download.

Contact For further information on implementing Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares in your community, please contact CNU Planning Director Heather Smith.


With over 1500 downloads of the manual from the ITE website, Designing Urban Thoroughfares has become a tool that transportation planners, public works departments, city leaders, and community members are using design better streets, mitigate traffic,spur economic growth and act on public health concerns. In February 2010, CNU leaders met with city officials and planners from Elgin, Illinois for the first implementation of the new guidelines. More recently, the City of El Paso passed a resolution in May 2011 adopting the manual as a recommend practice for "use in the design and construction on new roadways and redesign and reconstruction of existing roadways." In planning parlance, "traditional networks" refer to streets that are planned within a grid-like pattern of straight streets and short blocks, and "conventional networks" refer to widely spaced arterial roads with limited connectivity. Traditional networks have shown to be more resilient and retain value stronger than conventional networks. Even more, they provide the blueprint for cities and towns to strengthen the connection between street design and community life.

As the Great Recession has shown, the conventional thinking needs a fix. A Right Fix. Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach is here to provide that solution.

Decatur St., Atlanta, Ga.


Wall Street. Asheville, NC. (photo - Brian Hacker)

Previous News about the CNU/ITE Manual

  • City of El Paso Passes Resolution to Adopt CNU/ITE's Designing Walkable Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach
  • Local Officials Flock to Urban Thoroughfares Workshops
  • Colorado Officials to Use New Designs for Streets
  • CNU presents CSS Workshop & Transportation Summit
  • CNU and ITE Unveil New Street Design Manual

    • Brady St., Milwaukee, WI (photo - John December)

    Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares Resources

  • Fact sheet 1 -- Overview
  • Fact sheet 2 -- A Framework for CSS in Urban Thoroughfare Design
  • Fact sheet 3 -- Design Controls in Context Sensitive Solutions
  • Fact sheet 4 -- Using Context Zones and Thoroughfare Types in Design
  • Fact sheet 5 -- Designing Boulevards and Avenues in Highly Urban Mixed-Use Areas
  • Fact sheet 6 -- Designing Residential Avenues
  • Fact sheet 7 -- Main Street Design
  • Fact sheet 8 -- Creating Liveable Streets
  • Fact sheet 9 -- Designing Safe Urban Thoroughfares

  • Check out this new 2011 ITE Journal Article

    • Presentations/Lectures from prior CNU workshops:

  • Chicagoland workshop held in February 2013
  • Workshop in Blue Springs, Missouri
  • CNU Program Director Heather Smith's 2011 ITE Annual Meeting Presentation
  • Master PowerPoint overview on the manual contents (joint ITE/CNU)
  • Opening Remarks by Jacky Grimshaw, Center for Neighborhood Technology
  • A new urbanist's draft comments on the manual by Billy Hattaway, Glatting Jackson
  • Where We Are Now and Why We Need this Document by Norman Garrick, Univ. of Conn.

    • Stay Connected

  • Designing Walkable Urban thoroughfares Tumblr Forum. Discuss the latest news, updates and projects for the initiative.

    • As the Great Recession has shown, the conventional thinking needs a fix. A Right Fix. Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach is here to provide that solution.