Kid-friendly space at Seaside, Fla. No sidewalks, so everyone walks in the street. Photo from James Dougherty, partner at Dover, Kohl & Partners.

Quince Street, Philadelphia. A Philadelphia variation on the mid-block alley—a Trinity street, with tiny 3-story Trinity houses with one room per floor.

Broad Street, New York, New York. Looking towards Federal Hall and Wall Street in 1908.

Today, because of 911, the street is closed to most traffic, so it perhaps doesn’t qualify as a shared space. In 1908, all New York streets were shared spaces, with no traffic markings or signs.

Stolls Alley, Charleston, South Carolina. Looking from Church Street.

Church Street, Charleston, South Carolina. Looking north towards Water Street, at “New Urban Corner.”

— Andrés Duany’s choice.
No one hits the granite obelisk at the intersection of Milk and Main Streets in Nantucket because they’re all going slowly—no one drives fast on rough cobblestones. Slow speed = the driver sees more, the driver has more time to react, the car has shorter stopping distances, and there is no need for warning signs, red reflectors, or broad yellow striping on the road.

Via della Dogana Vecchia, Rome
Click on the image for larger version

HANS MONDERMAN AND SHARED SPACE are all the rage, but the Italians starting making slow streets in the late 1960s without naming them. Rome and Bologna don’t have all the traffic-calming bicycles that Amsterdam and Delft have, but the streets in the Centro Storico of Rome are still shared-space slow streets, with very few of the signs and markings that make drivers comfortable.
Slow Street of the Day