The Chisinau municipality has approved a Street Design Guide. The document is a set of recommendations and best practices for restoring traffic arteries in the city, which offers to the citizens the opportunity to use all modes of transportation, including walking, comfortably and safety.

A decision in this regard was recently voted by the Chisinau Municipal Council. The document is addressed to municipal employees, planners, urban planners and civil groups.

The Street Design Guide is intended to be a tool that will help local governments, as well as public and private investors, to design and build safe, comfortable and pleasant streets/public spaces depending on the citizens' needs.

The policy document identifies 5 key areas for analyzing an integrated approach to streets: mobility and access, street design, green strategy, street-specific programming and rendering, and immediate action and long-term planning.

The concept of the Guide is aimed at restoring streets as public places that offer citizens the opportunity to use all means of transportation, including safe and comfortable walking.

In this context, General Mayor Ion Ceban stated that the document reflects modern recommendations and practices of street design applied in European cities, as well as around the world. "The streets of the capital, as part of the public space, should be more accessible to people, more modern and more developed, and the new document on urban planning is a tool for achieving these goals," the Mayor added.

In accordance with the provisions of the Chisinau Municipal Council on the approval and application of the street design Guidelines, the General Department of  Public Transport and Communication Ways

General Department for Communal Housing and Landscaping Services, and, as appropriate, subordinate structural units, will implement this Guidance as a priority when developing and approving infrastructure projects and planning premises. At the same time, the General Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Land Relations should ensure that the norms of this Guide are applied in the development of infrastructure documentation (ZUP, DUP) and in the issuance of permits. 

The draft document was made possible thanks to the support provided by UNDP Moldova for the Chisinau City Hall within the framework of the project "Sustainable green cities for Moldova".