People and streets
The introduction of shared spaces and the removal of traffic signs, formal traffic control and signal controlled junctions is gaining momentum in European towns and cities as part of a European Union supported initiative. Spiegel Online reported last week on the German town of Bohmte where road signs and traffic regulation are being abolished. This report follows on from an earlier article last year which announced the EU experiment.
Hans Monderman is often credited with promoting this approach to humanising urban space. An article in Wired back in December 2004 clearly set out Monderman’s ideas. These include:
- removing signs and relying instead on the surrounding townscape for clues about traffic flow
- careful lighting of roads and adjacent pedestrian areas as a single design
- extending pavement activities to the edge of the street, further emphasizing the idea of shared space.
- ensuring eye to eye negotiation of right of way by human interaction rather than commonly ignored signs.
- eliminating kerbs - instead of a raised kerb, pavements or footpaths should be denoted by texture and colour.
In the UK, this approach to traffic and people has been promoted particularly by Martin Stockley and by Ben Hamilton-Baillie who recently carried out a series of case studies for CABE on better street design. We have worked with Martin Stockley Associates on proposals for Renfrew Town Centre and Keswick.
We have also promoted shared surfaces and a more flexible approach to traffic and pedestrian interaction in proposals for Keith, Ardrishaig, Nelson and St Helier. This approach is reflected to some extent in the Department for Transport’s design guidance Manual for Streets which marks another gradual move towards higher standards of street environments.
Other sites discussing the Spiegel Online article are listed here.
There is a report and description of related work in Kensington High Street, London here.
Technorati Tags: shared spaces, Hans Monderman, CABE, shared surfaces
Oct 11th 2007
Good to hear that these ideas are being promoted in the UK - unfortunately it’s still just the wise few who are willing to take the (perceived) risk of de-regulating.
To convince more public officials to take the plunge, I believe each of us needs to chip away whenever we get the opportunity. To help that process, we need to give them positive examples where change has already happened - and has resulted in an improvement to road safety, because it’s the dreaded safety audit that often scuppers these schemes.
Kensington High Street is often cited as an example. Good though it is, many officials will think “That’s one of the busiest streets in London, it’s completely different from my town.” But there are more examples out there.
A good starting point is an EU publication from a couple of years ago, “Reclaiming city streets for people - Chaos or Quality of LIFE?”. It uses case studies from a selection of European cities, including a cross-section from the UK : Wolverhampton, Vauxhall Cross in London, Oxford and Cambridge. It’s available as a free PDF download from http://www.eukn.org/eukn/themes/UrbanPolicy/Transportandinfrastructure/Roadsandroadtransport/Trafficmanagement/reclaiming-city-streets1000.html
PS - Willie - the link to the most recent Der Spiegel article goes to last year’s article - it should be http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,505246,00.html
Oct 15th 2007
If you want to see how Hans Monderman’s woonerf streets in Drachten really are an integral part of the local road network, take a look at google maps and switch on the satellite imagery.
The woonerfed streets are red. You can see how they fit into the bigger scheme of things - and it’s interesting to note that they are on through-routes in the town centre, not just on quiet streets that have parallel heavily trafficked alternatives.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=drachten+nl