Hızlı Git
In this article, I want to introduce the book Designing Streets for Kids—a bedside reference I benefited from repeatedly in my PhD thesis—without stopping at the level of “what does it say?” I aim to explain in some depth which problem field it touches, what kind of methodological language it builds, and how it can be used in the field. Throughout the text, I take the book’s own framework and emphases as my basis.
What kind of book is Designing Streets for Kids?
The book approaches streets not merely as an infrastructure scheme that regulates vehicle flow, but as a public space that carries—and sometimes compresses—the everyday lives of children and caregivers. The critical shift here is not to completely reject the discourse of “transport efficiency,” but to force transport to be considered together with children’s safety, comfort, curiosity, and right to development. The book states that streets can offer children and caregivers opportunities for play, inspiration, personal growth, and social interaction.
This approach moves street design away from being only a debate about an “engineering standard” and brings it closer to a discussion of quality of life and rights. The book clearly describes that a city’s physical infrastructure, as well as its policies and programs, need to align with principles for creating streets that are safe, healthy, comfortable, and usable, as well as inspiring and educational. This sentence is almost like the book’s backbone: not only design detail, but governance and implementation intelligence sit at the same table.
Urban95 and the Istanbul connection: where the book touches Türkiye
As part of the 2019 guide prepared by NACTO GDCI, the book makes the Urban95 program and the implementations in Istanbul visible. It specifically notes that between 2016–2019, the municipalities of Beyoğlu, Maltepe, Sarıyer, and Sultanbeyli took a leading role; universities, private research initiatives, and civil society provided support; and the Bernard van Leer Foundation brought together more than 100 people and more than 20 institutions through active collaboration.
This section prevents the book from feeling like an “imported text of good intentions” and places it within a framework that has counterparts in Türkiye, has been tried, and has real actors. For readers, this matters; because what we struggle with most in the field is usually not finding a technical solution, but making the solution compatible with local institutional language and opening it to implementation.
Thinking from 95 cm: the book’s strongest metaphor
The book’s most memorable call is “thinking from 95 cm”. It may look like a slogan, but it is actually a methodological proposal that re-tests design decisions at a child’s scale. Indeed, under the heading “ten steps you can take,” the book positions thinking from 95 cm directly as an action item for improving streets in a child-friendly way.
Here, 95 cm is not merely a measurement; it is the sum of things like eye level, risk perception, the balance of fear and curiosity, patience for waiting, and the ability to step over a curb edge. What an adult passes off as a “small detail” (a broken paver, accumulated trash, sign clutter) can turn into a barrier that changes a child’s route. The book’s emphasis that neglect produces a more direct problem for children—who are closer to the ground—also supports this scale discussion.
The book’s backbone: Street Design Strategies
The book proposes a “strategy set” for redesigning streets and groups it under five main headings: Improve, Protect, Reclaim, Activate, Expand. The value of this approach is that it does not suggest a single magic intervention; on the contrary, it argues that effective design often requires multiple strategies to be applied together, and that interventions can range in scale from low-cost measures to major investment projects.
I read this as a logic of “incremental improvement and compound solutions.” Especially because municipalities’ budget, tender, and maintenance capacity fluctuate, a design intelligence that starts small, grows, rehearses, and learns tends to work more sustainably in the field.
1) Improve: basic needs and everyday comfort
The foundation of the Improve strategy is that pedestrian infrastructure should be “usable and continuous.” The book is clear about sidewalk construction and improvement: it states that sidewalks should be made safe and accessible; built where they do not exist; widened if they are too narrow; and old, broken sections that undermine accessibility should be renewed.
The emphasis here is not only on moving, but on being able to stay on the street. It explains in detail that comfortable and usable streets should include seating, wayfinding, reliable public transport, climate-appropriate shade and sheltered areas, and facilities such as toilets and drinking fountains. These items are often thought of as a “park amenities list”; the book turns them into everyday design components of the street.
2) Protect: speed management and safe speed
Protect is where the book states the safety side most directly. “Speed kills” is positioned not as a claim, but almost as a starting principle of design. There are two critical tools here: lowering the speed limit and building the design to match that speed. The book recommends lowering speed limits to 30 km/h and aligning the design with a 30 km/h speed, stating that higher speeds narrow the field of view and affect reaction times.
At the same time, speed does not drop just with signs; physical and visual narrowing is needed. It notes that traffic lanes should not be wider than 3 meters, and that urban elements that create visual narrowing—trees, street furniture, rows of buildings—can increase driver attention. These recommendations are a strong example of the “soft-looking” side of landscape and urban design that nevertheless affects behavior directly.
3) Reclaim: making room for people
Reclaim is about redistributing street space. The book suggests reclaiming streets in full: pedestrianizing streets by closing them to vehicles and opening them to people, or designing them as shared streets for low speeds of 10–15 km/h. It also builds a redistribution language that aims to move more people using less space, through solutions such as bus lanes, protected bike lanes, or sidewalks rather than mixed traffic lanes.
This section is especially useful for cities where objections like “loss of parking” rise sharply; because it moves the discussion from a comfort dispute to the public value of space and the efficiency of mobility. It also clearly states that reclaimed space can be designed for “pause and play.”
4) Activate: inviting play and learning onto the street
Activate is the part that distinguishes the book from an ordinary traffic safety guide. It explains that child-friendly streets are interesting, joyful, and educational; and that streets can be attractions in themselves, not only corridors to get from one point to another.
This “attraction” idea finds its counterpart in street furniture and material decisions. It offers concrete hints such as patterns on ground surfaces; using vertical surfaces as a canvas for murals; and handling fences and walls in ways that can draw children’s interest through color, planting, and drawings. It also emphasizes that street furniture is not only for sitting, but can provide opportunities—especially at transit stops—to combine play and learning.
There is also a subtle critique here against confining “play” only to playgrounds; when play seeps into everyday routes, children’s relationship with the city becomes more natural and more continuous.
5) Expand: integrating adjacent spaces
Expand means thinking of the street not as an isolated section but together with its surroundings. The book frames this strategy as integrating adjacent spaces. This is an approach that allows impact to grow through small joints at “break points” such as school surroundings, pocket parks, building entrances, vacant lots, and areas in front of stops. In practice, the fastest gains often come from here; because without changing major infrastructure, spatial continuity and program continuity can still be established.
Nature and landscape: green infrastructure is not decoration, it is a performance component
One of the book’s strongest aspects from a landscape perspective is that it treats green infrastructure not as an aesthetic “add-on,” but as a component that produces performance in terms of health, climate, and water management. In the section on nature and landscape arrangements, it states that green infrastructure forms a buffer against pollutants, reduces stormwater runoff and heat island effects, and provides diverse opportunities for children and caregivers.
At a more micro scale, it says that landscape elements such as planters and tree pits give children a chance to connect with nature. This sentence may look simple, but it actually points to something important: establishing contact with nature not as “once in the park,” but as an everyday contact on the street strengthens children’s environmental perception and spatial memory. Landscape architecture has argued this for years; the book places it inside street design.
Temporary interventions: opening streets to children and rehearsing
The book recommends testing through pilots and rehearsal applications before permanent investment; it specifically notes that street solutions can be tried before investing in permanent implementation. This approach fits the “risk-averse” nature of local governments: measure first, see, improve; then make it permanent.
Under the heading of temporarily opening streets to children, it states that closing streets to traffic and opening them to people creates opportunities for play and social interaction, strengthens intergenerational ties, reduces air and noise pollution, and increases safety. It also emphasizes that play streets, without requiring additional programming, allow neighborhood residents to use streets spontaneously.
There are practical details as well: seasonal permits and facilitation such as fee waivers should be considered; closures are recommended to be planned six to eight weeks in advance. The suggestion of “loose parts” (cardboard boxes, fabric, balls, chalk) as unstructured play materials is a reminder that design can be strong without depending on expensive equipment.
Participation, transparency, and ethics: the book’s governance language
One of the reasons this book is valuable is that it frames participation not as a “presentation meeting,” but as a partnership spread across every step of the process. It clearly states that children and caregivers should be included in all stages, including planning, design, and policy updates; and it emphasizes that involving parents and neighborhood residents from the very beginning builds ownership. The call to include, depending on local context, children with disabilities, migrants, and marginalized communities also strengthens the book’s inclusivity.
On the ethical side, it draws attention to establishing children’s participation through voluntariness and consent, and to issues such as photo and sensitive data security. This is a practical reminder especially for academics and municipal teams doing fieldwork.
What does the book promise in practice?
Short answer: it helps you decide. It builds a kind of “design logic” for questions like which street to intervene in, where to start, what impact a given intervention might create, and how to scale it at a neighborhood level. The ten-step recommendation set is a good example: improving crosswalks, building wide and accessible sidewalks, adding trees and landscape arrangements, reducing speed through design, prioritizing children in policies, and thinking from 95 cm—bringing multiple layers together under the same framework.
I read this approach as connecting the “piece-by-piece works” we often see in urban management through a single backbone. A sidewalk renewal, a speed reduction, adding shade—each looks like a small job when viewed alone. But when they are tied to the same goal on the same street, a change of identity emerges.
Who should especially read it?
The target audience of this book is broad; but for some groups it is almost a resource that “should stay on the table”:
- Transportation, zoning, and parks and gardens units in municipalities; because the book builds design, policy, and operations into the same sentence.
- Landscape architects and urban designers; because it treats green infrastructure as part of street performance.
- Teams working on school area safety; because tools like speed management and temporary closures are highly implementable.
- Academics and students; because its language of participation, ethics, inclusivity, and criteria naturally connects with field research.
A small method suggestion while reading this book
Rather than consuming the book in one go, reading it in parallel with the field tends to be more efficient. First, treat the ten steps like a checklist and walk along a street, marking them. Then choose which of the five strategy headings will work together on that street. After that, if possible, test it with a temporary rehearsal application; observe whether it produces play and social interaction. This reading style turns the book from “shelf knowledge” into a design decision.
Bibliographic note and a remark
Designing Streets for Kids is a design guide that brings NACTO GDCI’s 2019 framework to Turkish readers through the Urban95 approach and with traces of implementation experience in Istanbul. The language of the text is technical but not dry; by following small details from time to time, it reminds us how a street grows inside a child’s world.
To read and download the book, click here.
