URBAN SPACE FOR PEOPLE: A CASE OF PARTIAL PEDESTRIANIZATION ON MILLI KUVVETLER STREET IN BALIKESIR CITY

Abstract

Streets have vital importance when the quality of life in urban areas is discussed. Although they have hosted every types of urban activities of pedestrians since the ancient times, streets nowadays are under the hegemony of motorised traffic. This transformation, which is initially emerged in other countries, is also affecting urban areas of Turkish cities strongly in recent years. Uncontrolled growth, increasing population and increasing number of motorized vehicles are causing various and different-scaled urban problems in Turkish cities. Thus, urban spaces, and especially, streets of Turkish cities are gradually becoming uninhabitable places. Today there is much interest to create pedestrian oriented urban places to revitalize existing urban centres. Main shopping streets in many European cities are palnned as pedestrian-priority areas. This paper intended to introduce Milli Kuvvetler Street Partial Pedestrianization 3roMeFt in percent alıkesir. This project is designed to transform the main retail street of the city into a shared space for both pedestrians and motor vehicles with extended pedestrian priority, and to improve the environmental image and visual quality of space. It will give priority back to the pedestrian. The principal idea of envisioning the street as a pedestrian-oriented and a human- scaled centre of urban life based on the assumption that pedestrianisation creates more livable environment, encourages people to spend more time on the street and establishes a platform for the economic revitalisation of the street.