Sweet Streets announces active streets project and design contest

With the announcement that Sweet Streets is a 2021 AARP Community Challenge Grantee, we’re calling on designers to create the template for pedestrian- and bicycle-oriented wayfinding signage.

Sweet Streets is also asking the Salt Lakers to plan for walking and biking routes to community destinations in their neighborhoods.

With funding from AARP, Sweet Streets will print up to 200 wayfinding signs that will be hung all over the city to encourage people to travel outside of cars.

The signs will tell people riding bikes, walking, scooting or rolling how far they are from parks, shops, libraries, schools, restaurants and other places to visit in their neighborhoods. We’re hoping to encourage people to take to the streets and discover what can be found outside of a car.

DESIGN GUIDELINES

We’re asking designers to create a sign template that includes space for the name of up to three community locations, the time/distance to each location and an arrow pointing people in the right direction.

Ideally, the sign would include space to display the time of travel for both people walking and people traveling by bike. Wayfinding design guidelines and examples can be found at this link, but designers should feel free to create something unique. Another example can be found on the image of this news article.

The template’s background should be Sweet Streets green (Hex: #4C9957 / Pantone: 7730 CP); the font should be Industry; and the template should include both a Sweet Streets logo (available here) and a link to sweetstreets.org. 

The Sweet Streets Board of Directors will meet and pick a winning design and award the designer $150 for their work. Submissions are due Monday, Aug. 23 at 5 p.m.

ROUTE GUIDELINES

For the wayfinding routes, we’re asking folks to identify places they enjoy walking/biking to or think others might. That might include a park, commercial node, cultural institution, school, religious institution, etc.

We believe that you know your neighborhood best. So please take this opportunity to lower barriers to entry for people who may not know just how easy it is to skip a car trip and walk, bike or roll for their next trip.

Submit your ideas for places that should appear on wayfinding signs along useful routes in neighborhoods across Salt Lake City. We’ll formulate them, have the signs printed and post more information on how we’ll be hanging them around town later this summer/early fall.

Please submit your wayfinding routes at the link above by Monday, Aug. 23, at 5 p.m. Email taylor@buildingsaltlake.com with any questions.