Streetmix allows you to easily design your own street by dragging and dropping features on the screen.

For this post you will play transportation planner and design your own complete street! Imagine the street you are creating to be in an up-and-coming urban area, planned for new transit-oriented development.
Create your own 80′ (this is the default width) complete street. Refer to the lesson and readings for the features that a complete street must have.
When you are finished, you will need to save your street as an image to share. On the upper-right hand corner of StreetMix, click “Share” and then “Save as Image”. Make sure that “Segments names and lengths” is checked off before you “Save to Computer” so that your group can see your design.
Your Post
Write a post (2-pages minimum, about 500 words) on your complete street design and explain how it accomodates a variety of transportation modes and would help make the planned transit-oriented development succesful. Make sure to use the “Insert Image” tool in your D2L discussion post box to post your StreetMix design.

Here is an example of a post one of my class mates did to help guide you:

The street I designed was mainly with an above ground monorail system, preferably the Metrail mass transit system. The greatest flaw with light rail and street car systems is they have to deal with ground level traffic, if not separated from it. This for a pro-car culture like Tucson would be hard to break without the right incentives. This street was designed with that mass transit system and traffic calming and integration in mind. Since streetmix.net didn’t have an option to which I could adapt that system into the design so I created a region to easily build this system.

The planting strip is there to support the I-beams that would hold up the dual rail systems, though it would have to be designed with arches in the design. Mainly for architectural strength but aesthic reasons like the fact Spanish Colonial design feature arches. So the mass transit infrastructure would appear as a Spanish arcade encompassing the city and encouraging vine plants like bougainvillea can encourage appearance.

With more people riding the monorail there will be less need for bus only lanes but they won’t be eliminated instead integrated into a “hub and spoke” transit system. The Monorail stops will link with bus routes, taxi’s, Uber & Lyft, bike rental and routes, while offering covered secure parking to encourage a park and ride culture in Tucson. The Bike culture is already ingrained in the city so expanding and securing these routes while allowing parking was an unusual balance.

Was originally going to use a Bollard, which can always be used in more tight spaces, but providing shaded bike routes and street parking. This makes these areas more attractive for parking while meters can be easily placed between palms. I believe palms will work better to provide shade, allow minimal damage to vehicles when branches fall or in storms, and less likely to be de-rooted. Then my next critique of the program is that I have to choose a tree and street light, why can I no choose and option for both with a staggered arrangement in the same 2-foot area of street.

If I could stagger the trees and street lights I would do the same the Wayfinding signs and benches if not creatively combine them in some way. The bike rentals and repair stations can be set up next to these benches to allow bikers to rest and repair as well as pedestrians. The combination and multiuse of infrastructure is kind of my goal with the sidewalks. So interior trees help shade 6-foot sidewalks, that I hope to expand with proper staggering, the palms can shade parking and bike routes. These trees can be some of the same trees that are part the UNESCO gastronomy award.

The program is great from a cross cut view but staggering and pairing certain items is where it lacks, plus a vertical view would be great. There is space for buses in my design like on the road with other traffic but also with pull outs, and restricted areas in the same region of the parking lane, and the palm area is instead with traffic exclusion domes. The bus pulls into that restricted bus pull out to the allow them to merge back into traffic.