People driving in a car see the world at a much different scale than people walking on the street. This large discrepancy in the design scale for a car versus the design scale for people has changed the overall planning of our communities.

Considering Scale

People driving in a car see the world at a much different scale than people walking on the street. This large discrepancy in the design scale for a car versus the design scale for people has changed the overall planning of our communities. For example, it has become common in many suburban commercial areas that a shopper must get in the car and drive from one store to the next. Except in the case of strip malls, stores are often separated by large parking lots and usually have no safe walkways for pedestrians. This makes it difficult to get around any other way but by car. This type of design scale is in sharp contrast to preautomobile commercial areas that commonly took the form of "main streets," where walking from one store to the next, was the norm.

Trying to accommodate users of the road who have two different design scales is a difficult task for designers; however, designers must always consider the safety of pedestrian and nonvehicular traffic, along with the safety of motorists. Both are users of the road. In many road designs, pedestrian needs were considered only after the needs of motorized vehicles. Not only does this make for unsafe conditions for pedestrians, it can also drastically change how a roadway corridor is used. Widening a roadway that once allowed pedestrian access to the two sides of the street can turn the roadway into a barrier and change the way pedestrians use the road and its edges.