The Street Formula project took up the challenge of designing the road infrastructure as part of participatory efforts to address the widespread practice of excluding local communities and numerous user groups from road project consultations. Streets and sidewalks take up as much as 80% of space available in cities, but citizens are rarely invited to co-decide about their design, functionality or intended use. Citizens and officials fail to leverage the available participatory vehicles to impact the design of roads.
Likewise in Toruń, the objective of the project was to develop a model that would engage citizens in joint street planning.
The project contributed to development of two design concepts for refurbishment of streets in Toruń - Szara Droga St. and Polna St. Consultations produced two street design methodologies that imply participation of users - one driven by working group efforts and the other one underpinned by consultations at the mobile consultation point. One of the roads was remodeled in 2015, while works on the second one will commence in 2016. The project has come to an end, but its partner - the Municipal Road Authority - continues consultations on street remodeling on the estate level, driven by one of these methodologies, within the framework of its “Design the Street” initiative.
Public consultations on remodeling led to development of consultation reports that provide an overview of the consultation methodology. Experiences gained during the project have been presented in the good street design guide.
Implemented activities were joined by various groups of users of streets subject to consultations plus local non-governmental organizations and district councils.
Toruń Road Authority was the project partner and its employees provided essential substantive support during ongoing consultations of street remodeling projects.