Starting Early Design

Starting Early: Creating Child-Friendly Downtowns

Is Your Main Street Child-Friendly?

Design: Child-Friendly design benefits everyone

Downtown should be welcoming to all. Traffic-calmed streets, stroller-accessible sidewalks, play-area pocket parks, and other child-friendly amenities are good for everyone. Child-friendly downtown-design is attractive to families, persons with disabilities, retirees, and tourists. The same pedestrian-safety features and accessible designs that encourage parents to frequent your downtown benefit us all.

Streetscape--Increase Pedestrian Safety:

Well-marked corner or mid-block crossings
Easily reached and understood light buttons
Curb cut outs, chokers, and boulevard meridians shorten crossing distances
Traffic calming through speed bumps, raised intersections, brick, stone, or textured streets, and other measures
Better lighting

Universal Design Features:

Curb cuts and accessible entrances enable parents to push strollers to safely cross intersections and get onto sidewalks safely.
Wider, uncluttered aisles inside your store benefit children and parents with strollers. They are also more attractive to all shoppers.
Elevators are welcomed by stroller-pushing parents or even parents with short-legged little children.
Downtown benches and shaded seating are welcomed by everyone including tired families.

Downtown Play Spaces

Downtown pocket parks can introduce play areas. They do not have to be primary colors either.
“Climbable Art” is very inviting to children and create memorable downtown trips.
Water features are the ultimate draw for children of all ages.

Family-Friendly Dining

Children’s menus, casual design, cleanable surfaces, adequate high chairs, butcher-block paper table-coverings and crayons and contribute to an enjoyable dinner for all.
Child-friendly restrooms are important to families.
Outdoor dining is tailor-made for boisterous child diners as long as there is adequate division between dining and the traffic.
Friendly service and cleanliness are probably most important.

Restrooms

Provide a clean changing table or fold down changing station in both the men’s and women’s restrooms.
Provide a stool by the sink and towels, (or if space and budget allows, a lower sink) for children.
Make sure the soap and towels are reachable.

Designated Play Areas
Designated play areas, whether a simple, interlocking block table, a vertical play panel on the ends of clothing racks, or a large play area in a family-oriented restaurant all serve to keep children entertained while parents dine or shop.

For more information, please contact: Carol J. Dyson, AIA, Illinois State Historic Preservation Office, DNR. Carol.Dyson@Illinois.gov