A woman carrying several bags in one hand and a shoulder bag over her other arm, walks with her head down, along a street, as several other passersby walk along the same street in the opposite direction.
The people on the street are walking in different directions.
In this context, the references in the history to requiring an identical standard or precluding any changes for 1998 may have been based on the assumption that the outcome of any change would be an increase in the standard.