Missouri Bicycle News

A fascinating article in Resurgence talks about innovative measures for handling motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic that are becoming hugely successful across the world.

Just substibute "Missouri" for "UK" in the first sentence and we are off to a running start:

[T]he UK's record for child safety is one of the worst in Europe and we have discouraged cyclists and pedestrians from using our streets. She went on to outline a new approach to traffic engineering that turned upside down much that I held true.

This new 'shared spaces' approach has been dubbed 'naked streets' by some, because it includes removing highway signage, traffic lights, speed bumps, centre lines and even pedestrian crossings - but there is much more to it than that.

It started some twenty years ago with Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer who was one of the first to challenge the prevailing view that traffic and pedestrians should be segregated. He found, in his hugely successful experiments, that by emphasising context and integrating drivers into the cultural and social world of the village or town, he could significantly improve safety, reduce speeds and enhance the built environment without adversely affecting traffic flows. In fact, in many areas congestion was reduced.

Recalling his first project, Monderman said, "When we do traditional traffic calming with speed bumps we typically expect about a 10% drop in speed. But with no disincentives, the speed was down by almost 50% - down from 57 km/h to under 30 km/h. I could not believe my eyes. All we had done was make a village look more like a village."

Read more here. permanent link to article: "Non-traditional traffic calming measures that work"
posted by Brent Hugh at 9/04/2006 08:23:00 PM |comment on this article