The dawn of 'slow streets'

beatriz

The Down of "Slow Streets"

In the design of streets, UK planners and urban designers are giving priority to people rather than cars. Below is a quote from the news item published by CABE. The 'Manual for Strees" can also be found there.

The DB32 guidance led to places dominated by the motor car at the expense of all other street users. We can see the corrosive effect this has had on the quality of the environment, quality of neighbourhoods and quality of life. Now CABE believes that for the first time, street design is starting to get the attention it deserves. The Manual for Streets will ensure that pedestrians are recognised as the most important users of residential streets. Highway engineers will be asked to focus on the whole environment of the street, and not just what goes on in the five metres between the kerbs.
(...)
Finally, streets should not just be designed to accommodate the movement of motor vehicles - they should also be spaces for playing and community fun, like street parties. Well-designed streets can encourage informal meetings between neighbours and build and strengthen communities by providing space for all kinds of activity. In the future our traffic spaces will become social spaces.

Find this article: CABE
Contributed by: Javiera

peter_j

I think the traffic engineer was dreamed up in the UK. It would be good if they were the ones to reinvent that profession to take into account more than shunting cars around town at maximum efficiency. The first thing to do, I suggest, is to get rid of roundabouts, dreaded foe of pedestrians and cyclists.

mark_melb

Sitting in London at present I'm thinking of the 'big fat nothing' that is going on with Pedestrian and Cycle friendly work happening in Melbourne.

The Legislative requirements here are quite onerous. On the project I am working on there is a requirement for 450 bicycle spots alone.

peter_j

They have installed "Copenhagen Lanes" for bikes in part of upper Swanston Street. I haven't really seen people taking to them. I used them briefly but found them a bit constricting - and you can't pass anyone in them.

Also, the council seems to be getting serious about kicking the belching buses out of Swanston Street. The buses has been there since Cobb and Co coaches, but so many people want to go look at the penguins these days that the street is a mess.

East West bike routes across the CBD are appalling - no change.

At least it's better than Auckland, where cyclists are so rare they startle me. I'm drawing up a house reno to a bungalow, in the inner area - and the code tells me that I need to increase on-site parking from one to two cars. They have about one good bus route in Auckland and seem to have given up looking at alternatives to the car.

mark_melb

Copenhagen Lanes have their place for commuters, but fitness cyclists like myself find it a problem overtaking. Can you imagine Beach Road (a 'training' road) with CLs?
Swanston Street? A dead loss. Lose the buses and taxis. And the ripple strips. Unfortunatly the most dangerous part of it are the 'tourists' treating it like Disneyland.

ozge

I live in Ankara with a crazy Mayor. He changed all infrastructure of the city traffic and the character of the city. I could have said it was a pedestrian friendly city. However, now what I see is wider roads for cars and smaller pavements for people and trees. In the inner city you can see one way roads for 4 cars.
We (Chamber of Landscape Architects Turkey, Chamber of Architecture, users…) protested against these non-sense decisions but it seems we could not make a difference.
Right now, I know from the best the importance of “slow streets.”

beatriz

Sad to hear that Ozge, not much better here either. Whitehorse Road is one of the widest ugliness in town, magastores with surface parking. In Melbourne and Australia in general, the idea of underground parking has not yet been adopted. The market rules, so in the city (because land is expensive) most carparks are located in buildings designed for the purpose, outside the CBD (city business district) cars dominate the space. As our public transport is totally underdeveloped, we still rely on cars for transportation – it is all very nonsensical.

You have a crazy Mayor, we have governmental madness at all levels. The estate government will not commit to improve (although it really needs to be created) public transport until 2009! But don't get your hopes too high, we are only talking of "10 trains and the training of 22 drivers" - a drop in the ocean.

When they say trains, they mean trains, slow, at street levels, with dangerous level crossing, runing out of schedule more often than not. We don't have an underground here or a proper bus service system like a real city.

There has been no consideration for the needs of the public (citizens) or the state of the environment.

I hope you can win your streets and city back, I hope that for us too!

See: Brumby's big spending spree

ozge

So, I believe public transportation is the back-bone of livable, walkable cities. In Ankara we have a subway but it has very limited stops for right now, so public transportaion mainly depends on buses, not so fast, but very cheap.
I would like to say I found amazing the Metro system in Paris. Also car parking is really expensive in the inner city. I think it is very guiding citizens not to buy a car and to use public transport; faster, cheaper...
Thanks for your wishes, I wish for all of us...