Why 3DStreet? Vision & Mission

Vision

Reimagine a new world through safer, greener streets.

Mission

We aim to empower the world with simple tools that enable anyone to create a safer and greener future, one street at a time.

Problem Statement

Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years. [^1] In many cases, those injured are people outside of a vehicle. Collisions resulting in injury with pedestrians and active mobility users can be prevented or minimized with proven infrastructure solutions already installed in many locations across the world. [^2]

However, access to software and engineering skills required to implement these proven solutions are very limited. Few people have the abilities and resources to use software that is needed to prototype, design, and engineer street infrastructure. Further, most existing street design software is closed-source, expensive, and biased toward motor vehicle throughput as a primary objective.

These accessibility barriers prevent community members and advocates from fixing deadly streets in their own neighborhoods.

Solution Statement

3DStreet is an attempt to provide accessible software to conceptualize and share safer street designs from multiple 3D perspectives, usually in the context of a specific geographic location. 3DStreet is a web-based, open-source[^3] application.

Said another way, 3DStreet is an ever-evolving answer to the question, "what if we made street planning tools that are fun and accessible to everyone?"

Ecosystem

We created 3DStreet to be part of a wider ecosystem of open-source applications making street planning and design and accessible to users of diverse abilities, empowering them to design safer streets and transportation infrastructure. These tools are (or should be) interoperable, and need not be all made by one organization. Other tools include Streetmix and A/B Street.

For example, 3DStreet and Streetmix are already compatible: you can create a new 3DStreet scene by importing a Streetmix street.

References

[^1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries

[^2] https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/