Ashland's Comprehensive Plan - Transportation Element (extract):

"Ashland has a vision - to retain our small-town character even while we grow. To achieve this vision, we must proactively plan for a transportation system that is integrated into the community and enhances Ashland's livability, character and natural environment...The focus must be on people being able to move easily through the city in all modes of travel, Modal equity...ensures that we will have the opportunity to conveniently and safely use the transportation mode of our choice, and allow us to move toward a less auto-dependent community."

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Pedestrian Safety in Sweden

"...The main result was that crossing at intersections where there is zebra marking seems to result in higher risk for an individual pedestrian than crossing at other intersections. It was also shown that signalized intersections do not provide a safe crossing situation for pedestrians...

...The general explanation to these remarkable results was that pedestrians experience a false feeling of safety when protected by zebra marking or signalization. Another way of expressing it could be that pedestrians cross more carefully when no help is provided...

...The conclusion from most recent research is that there is a need to guarantee either completeseparation between pedestrians and vehicular traffic, or create good conditions for properinteraction between the pedestrian and the driver... " [more]

Challenging assumptions, Ben Hamilton-Baillie

Ben Hamilton-Baillie advocates replacing street clutter with social protocol

Allan B Jacobs has been described as ‘the ultimate student of the street’ by the Project for Public Spaces (PPS). The author of Great Streets and The Boulevard Book was asked by PPS to summarize the key conclusions from his long career as both a researcher and practicing urban designer. His response was two-fold. Firstly, he concludes that improving streetscapes and urban design requires utilizing the power of observation and questioning assumptions. Secondly, he advocates fostering interaction between pedestrians and cars in the public realm....
Proposals
e.g.
...Remove formal pedestrian crossings. They merely contribute to the conditions that, in turn, give them an apparent purpose. By introducing a false sense of safety to the pedestrian, they increase danger. Courtesy crossings are cheaper, simpler, and more appropriate. A wide-ranging review of pedestrian crossing types by the University of Lund suggests that informal crossings are significantly safer than puffins, pelicans, toucans, zebras and all the rest of the complicated and expensive zoological armoury...
... If any highway authority is nervous about risk or liability, refer them to the case of Corringe v. Calderdale. It is the duty of drivers to take the road as they find it…
[more]

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Building Good Roads

By Matthew Yglesias March 28. 2009 ThinkProgress.org

One problem in our transportation policy is that funding is unduly weighted to spending money on roads rather than spending money on mass transit. Another problem in our transportation policy is that funding is unduly weighted to building new roads rather than to doing the necessary work to maintain the roads we already have in excellent condition. But yet another problem is that there are roads and then there are roads. There are freeways, and there are boulevards. There are connected networks of streets that can be walked or biked as well as driven, and there impenetrable mazes of cul-de-sacs...[more]





This article is interesting - especially for the many reader comments that follow.

e.g. .."...the one on the left looks European, while the one on the right North American (gross simplification). In Europe the one of the left would have parks, footpaths and cyclelanes between the cul-de-sacs and would therefore be friendly to non-driving modes of transport."

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Students Give Up Wheels for Their Own Two Feet

Original by By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL March 26, 2009

This story came via a note on the BTA blog :

Today's New York Times reports on a simple step that has already reduced car travel by 100,000 miles in the town of Lecco, in northern Italy: kids walking to school.
Just as Portland contemplates cutting the Safer Routes program that serves families and kids at 25 Portland schools, other communities around the US and the world are realizing how much traffic, pollution and ill health could be avoided if those families within walking- or biking-distance of their school sent their kids under their own power, and not by car

[more]

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Civic Trust Special Award - 2009

New Road, Brighton
...By adopting the concept of a shared space the scheme has transformed a traditional, motorist dominated street scene incorporating rigid features such as kerbs and crossings into one where pedestrians are able to move freely over the whole area and have priority over other users. The inclusion within the design of attractive features such as bespoke seating and lighting has improved the experience of many people who use the area, and has created a new café culture with a lively, welcoming atmosphere which is pedestrian friendly both during the day and in the evening. Local people were involved in the design process through a series of workshops and it is clear that the scheme has improved the experience for many people who use it...[more]

Woonerven

excerpt courtesy of Brand Avenue blog

Woonerf is a Dutch word that translates roughly as "street for living," and refers to Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman's innovative and increasingly popular contribution to urban design: a streetscape stripped of lane markers, curbs, sidewalks, zebra crossings and other obvious boundaries denoting spaces meant for single forms of transportation. While at first blush such an experiment would seem to make the street more dangerous for its users, the woonerf actually ensures increased safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike, because of how the ambiguous design mixes otherwise discrete user groups...
Blurring the boundary between street and sidewalk, woonerfs combine innovative paving, landscaping and other urban designs to allow for the integration of multiple functions in a single street, so that pedestrians, cyclists and children playing share the road with slow-moving cars.

Where the sidewalk ends

extract courtesy seedmagazine.com

At an intersection in Portland’s Chinatown, the asphalt street suddenly gives way to an urban oasis. A pair of massive, granite planters with palm trees flank the entrance to the street, which opens onto a one-block space paved with concrete squares. There are no white lane dividers or sidewalks. Instead, rough-hewn granite columns distinguish places for pedestrians and places for cars.
“The idea of this street is that it’s designed like a public square but it’s open to traffic,” said Ellen Vanderslice, a project manager for the Portland Department of Transportation. “We were very consciously trying to create a body language of the street that tells people something different is going on here.”

...The approach appears to be working, she said. “Pedestrians tend to just mosey across the street every which way,” Vanderslice said. “And drivers slow down and pay attention.”
Portland’s so-called “festival street,” which opened two months ago, is one of a small but growing number of projects in the United States that seek to reclaim streets used by cars as public places for people, too. The strategy is to blur the boundary between pedestrians and automobiles by removing sidewalks and traffic devices, and to create a seamless multi-purpose urban space...
[ lots more ]

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

'Sharrows' aim to help cars and bikes share roads

...Caught between the need for a continuous bike lane and the demands of drivers, Portland transportation engineers finally came up with a solution. Next month, the city will fill the gaps in the network with new shared-lane pavement markings, called "sharrows." Stencils of a bicycle with two chevron markings above it will be painted, two per block, in areas too narrow for a bike lane. The idea is to keep cyclists away from parked cars while promoting awareness of their right to use the road.
"The sharrow sends the message to cyclists, 'yes, you are welcome here,' "...
...Pioneered in Denver in the mid-1990s, sharrows are attracting the attention of transportation officials around the United States. But the markings are controversial. In June, Boulder, Colo., became one of the few cities outside of California to install the shared-lane markings... [more]

See also story about introduction of SHARROWS in Cincinnati

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Main Street Dims Its Lights

Ashland's award-winning investigative reporter Bob Plain who for many years sleuthed for the Daily Tidings "City Beat" has returned to his hometown of East Greenwich, RI and is now Managing Editor of a newly-launched online local newspaper My02818.com .

A recent article shows that East Geenwich is, like Ashland, having ideas about street lighting, sustainability and safety issues.
Main Street Dims Its Lights
"...“We wanted to see if the cobra lights are really needed,” he said. “If people decide it’s not working, we’ll change it back.”The idea percolated out of the Downtown Planning Initiative, a subcommittee of the East Greenwich Planning Board. The town council approved the idea in December and National Grid turned off the cobra lights last week.He said the change will also save the town money on its electric bill and said the reduced light will have a “natural traffic calming effect” on Main Street. “Traffic will definitely slow down”... [more]

Another article in the newspaper shows that they too are also looking at light rail options for their community.
article: An East Greenwich Train Station

"...East Greenwich and the state have expressed interest in locating a rail station in East Greenwich since 2004, and some conceptual groundwork for transit-oriented development zones in town has already been completed..."
[more]

ICE VIP gets tour of town's shared space

The President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Dr Jean Venables was given a tour of Ashford’s [UK] shared space scheme on Tuesday...
...Judith Armitt, managing director of Ashford’s Future, said: “Our shared space scheme has set the standard for transforming a major town centre road and several local authorities are looking to follow our lead. Following several high profile visits we are delighted to welcome the President of the ICE. Shared space is helping unlock the commercial development potential of Ashford and has made the area much more attractive to residents and visitors.”
[more]

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

In Ashland, Cars Rule - OK?

A local resident recently wrote to the Editor of Ashland's Daily Tidings newspaper:

Pedestrians, save gas by not making traffic stop for you
Pedestrians! Don't make autos stop for you at crosswalks! Although autos are required by law to stop for pedestrians, we'd use less gasoline and create less pollution if pedestrians waited for traffic to clear before crossing, or walked half a block to the closest stoplight...So all you oh-so-green Ashlanders, do your bit to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lessen the risk of global warming — don't make vehicles stop for you at crosswalks!

read entire letter at [link]

Perhaps a better solution might be to eliminate all the traffic signals and reduce the speed of vehicles such that pedestrians could safely cross anywhere between the slow-moving traffic. Drivers would be watching the pedestrians rather than the green-for-GO signal above them.
Sounds like - Shared space ! see video - Introduction to Shared Space

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Impromptu Shared Space Calms Soho Intersection

by Ben Fried on March 5, 2009 courtesy of StreetsBlog.org

...Reader Tim Koelle sends this report of a busted traffic signal gone terribly right at the intersection of West Broadway and Grand yesterday morning:
I watched for an hour while cars, trucks and pedestrians shared this space quietly... with civility! Little honking, no aggressive driving, no traffic cop. Why? Because the light was out.
No one had to speed up and honk to make the green light on time; no one honked or changed lanes to take advantage of the narrow window of time the light granted them. Everyone came to a stop, looked around (wondering why the light was dead, and what they should do), and proceeded slowly thru.
Instead of a line of cars waiting for the light to change, alternate sides vying with each other for the few precious moments allowing them the right to pass thru... no one had to wait very long. And in fact the alternate sides traded back and forth, almost at a one-to-one ratio. No one had to wait, so no one got stuck in a line, so no one sped up, so no one honked, so there was no need for aggressive driving! Even pedestrians got their due...
[more, with comments]

It reminds me of when a power cut in Downtown Ashland happened just at evening rush hour, shutting down all the traffic signals.
Everybody just quietly took their turn - bikes, pedestrians and cars all watching each other, rather than waiting for the eye-in-the-sky to tell them to GO !
I have also heard reports of early morning commuters stopped and waiting at red lights on Lithia Way - for the non-existing cross traffic. Do we actually need traffic signals in Ashland?
Comments welcome.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

New Inn Hall Street to get revamp

A £625,000 scheme to create a shared space for all road users in an Oxford city centre street is about to get under way.
The West End Partnership will start work on Monday to transform New Inn Hall Street, following the completion of the £2m facelift of neighbouring Bonn Square in December.
The resurfacing project will last 20 weeks and is designed to encourage vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists to be courteous and give way to each other.
Although the full width of the street, including pavements, will be at the same level, the pavement areas will still be clearly marked.
Oxfordshire County Council, which is planning to pedestrianise more of the city centre as part of its Transform Oxford project, is providing £125,000 towards the work. [more]

Sunday, March 01, 2009

America before streets were civilised

Some Reflections from 2017
by Ben Hamilton-Baillie Hamilton-Baillie Associates Limited, Bristol, United Kingdom

Contribution by the author to the world wide collaborative project “Messages for America: World-wide experience, ideas, counsel, proposals and good wishes for the incoming Obama transportation team”. See www.messages.newmobility.org for latest version of this report of the New Mobility Agenda

Looking back at 2009 from the closing days of Barrack Obama’s presidency, it is sometimes surprising to appreciate how much has changed in the relationship between people, places and traffic, and to grasp the effect of the dramatic policy change that took hold back then. Aware that successful cities are judged on the quality of their public realm, policy makers began to transform city streets from soulless arteries for vehicles into spaces shared equally by pedestrians, cars, taxis, buses, bicycles and every kind of social activity. Given the huge benefits that sprang from the multiple use of public urban space for safety, movement, accessibility, and economic vitality, it is now hard to recall how different typical streets once looked.Until 2009, they looked like everywhere else. In those days. the roadways providing running space for vehicles were carefully separated from pedestrian spaces. Kerbs, steel barriers, bollards and paint markings reinforced this separation. Different organisations looked after the two worlds that this segregation created, one managed by “traffic engineers”, the other by “urban designers”. Traversing this divide required specific crossings controlled by traffic lights, buttons and beeping signals. Standardised signs, traffic islands, poles, control boxes and illuminated bollards littered the spaces between buildings. Behaviour in the roadway was controlled by the state via cameras, and normal social courtesies were discouraged.Inspired by pioneering examples from Europe, and particularly by the work of Hans Monderman from The Netherlands, people suddenly realised that all this highway clutter was no longer needed. Without traffic signals, signs and markings, traffic flowed slowly and more smoothly. Congestion diminished. Casualty rates, particularly for children and vulnerable pedestrians, declined sharply. Shops flourished as pedestrian footfall increased, with people negotiating their way through slowly moving traffic using informal communication and courtesy. Bus companies reported more reliable running times. Every street in America began to reflect its history, context and purpose, reflecting the richness and diversity of the country’s huge geography and infinite variety.Only the most busy traffic arteries remained segregated, such as the freeways and major arterial highways. All the remaining city streets became “shared space”. Back in 2009, most found the change surprising and a little daunting. It seemed almost perverse and counter-intuitive to take away rules and regulations, signs and signals, and to rely on people’s commonsense and adaptive skills. And yet, just as crowds seem to develop an intuitive choreography in busy complex spaces such as railway station forecourts and departure lounges, so drivers and pedestrians engaged in a new respectful relationship at busy intersections. Speeds remained below 20 mph. Delaying a bus or lorry became a serious social gaffe. Eye contact and hand signals became more sophisticated. Driving behaviour adapted to the times of day and rhythms of the city, with quite different styles when schools were coming out, when the bars were closing, or when streets were empty before dawn. Pedestrians walked where they wished to walk. Bicycling became the norm in the low speed, smooth flowing streets. Taxi drivers still grumbled. Traffic signal engineers were retrained as park keepers and window cleaners. Civility flourished.So many changes in the past eight years, but none more significant for the quality of everyday life in America as the moment when engineering merged with creativity and commonsense.