Traffic management and reinventing wheels

Commentators

At Ecobuild Michael Sorkin talked about designing new cities in the US and in China, where walking radiuses of 10 minutes were being used as a defining characteristic of a healthy and sustainable neighbourhoods.

Elsewhere, Will Self keeps up his ‘psychogeography’ campaign, extolling the benefits and radicalism of travelling by foot:

We understand that to walk the city and its environs is, in a very powerful sense, to use it. The contemporary flâneur is by nature and inclination a democratising force who seeks equality of access, freedom of movement and the dissolution of corporate and state control.

Meanwhile, the economics of having to transport people and goods, and the small matter of pedestrian safety keep other discussions down to earth.

Legislators

Somewhere in the middle, Manual for Streets 2 (MfS2) and the concept of shared spaces keeps both viewpoints in focus for designers and planners – and for product manufacturers and technological innovators – all of whom are involved in squaring the circle, and trying to create better environments for living.

Pedestrians

In theory, barriers, bollards and strict demarcation are against the spirit of shared spaces. But the reality is that sympathetic and thoughtful design can mean that low key safety features are less intrusive.

There’s also the school of thought that says we can revel in street furniture elements as individual features in their own right. Note the popularity of the Bollards of London blog.

‘Smart’ traffic management technologies are also being more closely integrated into realtime traffic control and pedestrian movement.

The thinking behind ‘puffin crossings’ (‘pedestrian user-friendly intelligent crossings’), for example, is to make traffic signal and pedestrian crossing control more contextual, while encouraging greater awareness of traffic by people crossing busy roads.

The ADEPT website (the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport) makes the same points:

ADEPT believes that seeing approaching traffic will reduce the risk of an accident should a driver fail to stop at a crossing. Pedestrian detection may be used to confirm the presence of a pedestrian waiting to cross, and to vary the duration of crossing time to more accurately reflect the time needed to cross the road. The crossing time can be extended for groups of pedestrians, and for mobility impaired users, or operate for a minimum time when a single pedestrian crosses quickly.

It’s not necessarily something that would float Will Self’s boat, but systems and software are being harnessed here to help pedestrians and drivers to co-exist. This summary from the Intelligent Transport Society talks about influencing driver awareness and behaviour:

ITS [intelligent transport systems] can be applied to road transport to improve efficiency and safety through the provision of on-line information to drivers in their vehicles and by equipping the vehicle with computerised systems which assist the driver (e.g. following and lane keeping).

It also improves the efficiency of transport by use of electronic systems to improve traffic control and enforcement of traffic regulations. Electronic motorway tolling and congestion charging are also ITS options.

Conclusion

For designers and for residents – whether commercial or private – there will, no doubt, be ‘robust exchanges of views’ as the realities of shared spaces, town planning and traffic management are hammered out. But that’s shared spaces for you, be they residential car parks, market town centres, or historic ‘debatable lands’:

In 1551 the Crown officers of England and Wales, in an attempt to clear out the trouble makers, declared that ‘All Englishmen and Scottishmen, after this proclamation made, are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy all and every such persons, their bodies, buildings, goods and cattle as do remain or shall inhabit upon any part of the said Debatable Land without any redress to be made for the same.’

Costing the benefits of green infrastructure

King’s Cross Canal - law_keven on Flickr

Mark Smulian on Planning Resource argues that ‘a lack of political commitment and a shortage of green skills are pushing urban landscaping down the pecking order despite the potential benefits it offers for improving local quality of life.’

He links into CABE’s Grey to Green campaign which wants to see skills and funding shift from grey infrastructure – think roads – to green infrastructure – think parks, gardens, allotments and green roofs.

He also notes the PricewaterhouseCoopers survey which found that councils spend, on average, 4.3% of their budgets on green infrastructure. Increasing this a little could have a noticeable impact on other areas of concern / expenditure, including local air quality, climate change and health.

The hardy amongst you might like to look-up a recent Dutch research report – Morbidity is related to a green living environment.

The researchers looked at the morbidity data of 195 general practitioners in 96 Dutch practices, serving a population of 345,143 people, and the percentage of green space within a 1km radius of each household.

The results were quite clear. After stripping out demographic and socio-economic factors, the ‘annual prevalence rate of 15 of the 24 disease clusters was lower in living environments with more green space in a 1 km radius.’

The study stresses the importance of green space close to home for children and lower socio-economic groups.

For more on green infrastructure try Brice Maryman’s and Nate Cormier’s Green Infrastructure Wiki.

I sourced the Oakland County (Michigan, USA) Green Infrastructure Program from there. It’s particularly strong on the economic benefits of the programme, and what they term the ‘visioning process’.

Oakland County’s Green Infrastructure Program focuses on identifying an interconnected network of green space that conserves natural ecosystem values and functions, guides sustainable development, and provides associated economic and quality-of-life benefits to our communities.

Sustainable Cities – ‘Preparing towns and cities for a changing climate’ – is also a good place to look for the UK perspective.

It’s strong on the benefits – quality of life, healthier residents, stronger local economy, protection from climate change.

And it also provides examples of best practice. There’s Manchester’s Green Streets project that is planting street trees in areas of socio-economic deprivation where there is currently little green cover. Whilst Sutcliffe Park in London is an example of a new floodplain, engineered to protect Lewisham from flooding and introduce more green space into the area.

Elevating public transport

Tokyo Monorail - OiMax on Flickr

If streets are too crowded then maybe the log-jams can be avoided with alternative forms of public transport.

Steven Dale writes on the history of cable-propelled transit in New York and suggests it is a cost-effective method of crossing rivers and reaching airports.

The Gondola Project, with which Dale is also involved, describes itself as ‘a cable-propelled transit primer.’

In the UK urban cable transit or monorails haven’t got off the ground, so to speak.

There was the caterpillar monorail at the Gateshead Garden Festival. And Robert Kirkman’s plan to link the Millennium Dome and West Greenwich from the end of the 1990s. Whilst more recently there was a proposal to build a cable car link over the Thames between Thamesmead and Beckton.

However, urban monorails and gondola systems have been successfully implemented as part of public transport strategies in several cities around the world.

The Tokyo Monorail was opened in 1964 and currently handles 127,000 passengers per day.

And there’s these as well:
Skyrail Midorizaka Line, Japan
Chongqing Metro, China
Metro Monorail, Sydney
Las Vegas Monorail, USA

Urban technology forecast

Five predictions about urban technology changes in the next five years, from IBM’s Next 5 in 5 review.

1. Cities will have healthier immune systems
2. City buildings will sense and respond like living organisms
3. Cars and city buses will run on empty
4. Smarter systems will quench cities’ thirst for water and save energy
5. Cities will respond to a crisis—even before receiving an emergency phone call

ESI references:

• Traffic management
• Building management

What makes a street a successful public space?

Buchanan Street - Glasgow - dalbera on Flickr

Project for Public Spaces is an American ‘nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping people create and sustain public places that build communities.’

They’ve an interesting piece entitled ‘9 Great Streets Around the World’ that explores what it is that makes some streets successful, multifunctional public spaces that people can both use and enjoy.

Camden High Road in London is noted for its success as a commercial street, and Buchanan Street in Glasgow as a pedestrian street.

There are other examples from North America, mainland Europe and Australia.

ESI references:

• Street lighting
• Co-ordinated street furniture
• Planters

Cycling in London (at a price)

Transport for London will be launching a chargeable bike-hire scheme in 2010

Bikeradar.com reports that:

‘Transport for London also announced that more than a quarter of the intended 400 cycle docking station sites have already received planning permission. The scheme should see 6,000 hire bikes spread over London’s zone one travel area.’

ESI references:

• Cycle parking