Mapping How Cities Are Reclaiming Street Space

To help get essential workers around, cities are revising traffic patterns, suspending public transit fares, and making more room for bikes and pedestrians.

"The fight against coronavirus has brought cities to a standstill. With roughly one third of the global population under lockdown, vehicle traffic has all but vanished on the world’s busiest roads and highways. Public transit ridership in global metros has dropped by more than 80% since early January. For residents in one U.S. city, Seattle, the average daily travel distance has gone from the length of the Las Vegas Strip to that of a bowling alley..."

see article:  Mapping How Cities Are Reclaiming Street Space

A Common Sense of Place

What are streets for? What story should they tell? Featuring Ben Hamilton-Baillie. Produced by Martin Cassini in association with Maniac Films.

People & Traffic in Llan - Crowdfunding for change

Llangollen, North Wales, UK  07 March 2015

"Everyone grumbles about Castle Street. Drivers in a hurry to get through would like all parking banned, pedestrians would like safe crossings, shopkeepers need to load and unload and want more parking for their customers, tourists want a pleasant place to stroll.

At the moment we have the worst of all possible solutions, some legal parking, some illegal parking, double yellows down one side giving motorists the illusion of a clear road - until they meet a large vehicle coming the other way, and pedestrians running the gauntlet. The only good thing is that it's so chaotic the traffic is often slow and there haven't been any serious accidents. There have been a lot of near-misses, minor bumps and startled pedestrians. Relying on poor traffic management to keep people safe isn't really a sensible policy..."

more at http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/people-traffic-in-llan/

Breaking news: 

Crowdfunding target for Llangollen road survey reached !

http://www.newsnorthwales.co.uk/news/145131/crowdfunding-target-for-llangollen-road-survey-reached.aspx

'Fewer injuries' in Ashford shared space road scheme

A scheme where pedestrians and car users share the same space has resulted in fewer accidents, according to Kent County Council (KCC). The scheme, which turned Ashford's ring road into streets where drivers and pedestrians have equal priority, has been in place since November 2008. Figures released by the authority show there has been a 41% drop in accidents in which people have been injured. Critics have argued the scheme is dangerous to blind people. Under the scheme, signs, traffic lights and pavements were removed... ...The architect behind the scheme, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, said: "The worst fears that the accident rate would increase have not been born out by the figures. "It's certainly safer - the difficulty with any scheme like this is that it increases the slight sense of risk and discomfort in order to achieve that safety. "So people inevitably have some hesitation and nervousness about mixing with traffic as it relies on establishing a relationship at low speeds, which makes it possible to cross the road." [more]

Shared Space pedestrian and traffic interaction, Bern, Switzerland

"Free-flowing pedestrian and traffic flows along this busy suburban arterial route into Bern. illustrates the potential for improving pedestrian flows where a low-speed traffic environment has been created. Road carries over 20,000 vehicles per day. First three years of this and similar schemes have seen traffic flows improve, pedestrian delays reduced and significant improvements in accident rates. All former signal-controlled pedestrian crossings were removed."[Ben Hamilton-Baillie and Fritz Kobi] [Note the children's play structure with bouncing kids at the roundabout in the background. Also the emergency vehicle @ 4:23 min. shows how the pedestriam median refuge is mountable in emergencies. ]

Shared space concept to lift lower Brougham St

- Taranaki Daily News (NZ)
A $1 million redevelopment of New Plymouth's dingy lower Brougham St will put cars and pedestrians on the same level.

From March next year much of the street between Devon St and Ariki St will become a single level shared space for cars, pedestrians, cyclists and even skateboarders.

The redevelopment is to be funded from the council's $3.71m model walking and cycling community grant and will create a type of space increasingly used in street renewals around the world.

"We've taken notes from similar street redevelopments in central Auckland where there aren't separate spaces for traffic and pedestrians, but rather a shared space which has resulted in an open, fresh-feeling public area where once there was just a road," said Let's Go project manager Carl Whittleston.

"We are trying to makes this space pedestrian-friendly but we're not seeking to keep vehicles out."

To achieve this shared space concept, defined footpaths are gone and seating areas, planter boxes and a green space determine where cars and people can go.

A single lane of road will remain for buses turning right out of King St and parking spaces will still be provided for library users.

Mr Whittleston expected the design to be completed in January with plans put up for display in Puke Ariki. All going well, construction will start in March next year.

Coventry: Shared Space Video

Blind man slams Coventry 'shared space' junctions

By Tina JundayNov 23 2011

...Coventry City Council has ditched traffic lights in eight busy junctions and put in 20mph speed limits to give drivers and pedestrians equal priority as part of a “shared space” scheme.

Council leaders say the schemes will lead to road users paying more attention and make the city centre safer, more attractive and pedestrian-friendly. But Jim Smallman, aged 62, of Green Lane, Finham, says the European-style changes have created “no-go areas” for the blind.



Read More http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2011/11/23/blind-man-slams-coventry-shared-space-junctions-92746-29827275/#ixzz1eaBb4icJ

Exhibition Road Shared Space now open

A farewell to pavements
Is it a mad idea to turn roads and pavements into one great big shared space? London's grandest cultural artery will shortly find out

By Justin McGuirk
guardian.co.uk

"...Roads and pavements are rules, keeping hard cars and soft pedestrians apart. Lane markings, pedestrian crossings and steel railings are another layer of rules. Do we really need such nannying? What if we relaxed the rules a little?

This is exactly what's happening at London's Exhibition Road, the great Victorian thoroughfare that stretches half a mile from South Kensington tube station to Hyde Park in London. In the last 18 months, it has been ripped up and remade to a new design that all but abolishes the distinction between road and pavement..."

[More]

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]

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]

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 ]

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

Bloomberg Puts Forward a Bold, Transformative New Vision for Broadway

by Aaron Naparstek on February 26, 2009 StreetsBlog.org
New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan unveiled plans to pedestrianize a large swath of Broadway in Midtown Manhattan ...
...Extending from 59th Street at Columbus Circle to 23rd Street at Madison Square with substantial pedestrian-only areas at Times and Herald Squares, Mayor Bloomberg's plan for Broadway is, arguably, the boldest and most transformative street reclamation project since Portland, Oregon decided to tear down Harbor Drive in 1974...
Construction on the street redesign -- which is being presented as a pilot project and being built with temporary materials -- will start in May and continue through August...
...Sadik-Khan said she expected the bike lane would mainly be used by tourists and pedicabs. The bicycle rental company Bike & Roll is considering setting up a rental facility somewhere along the route. [more]