Britains first naked street. No signs,no pavements
Discussion
Why don't these clowns pedestrianise the street? Ah but it's not about that is it?
Why deliberately create conflict? I don't believe accidents fell elsewhere. Pedestrians probably fell. This is utter madness.
More garbage from the communists. Story begins...........
January 06, 2005
Will the first naked street make drivers slow down?
By Ben Webster, The Times Transport Correspondent
8d2d8a.jpg
ROAD signs, barriers and even traffic lights could disappear from Britain's
streets if an experiment on one of London's most famous thoroughfares is
adopted around the country.
Exhibition Road, home of the Science, Natural History and Victoria & Albert
museums, is to be the showcase for a street design in which cars and
pedestrians will be encouraged to mingle.
All traditional signals and barriers used to separate the carriageway and
pavement will be removed and the question of who has priority will
deliberately be left open. Even the kerb will be eliminated as part of the
scheme to create Britain's first such "shared space".
The theory is that all street-users are equal. Drivers will be forced to
slow down and establish eye contact with pedestrians because they will no
longer be able to assume that they have right of way.
Traffic managers traditionally have taken the view that pedestrians and
vehicles must be separated at all costs. But research from the Netherlands,
Denmark and Germany has shown that traffic lights and road signs deter
road-users from taking responsibility for their actions. A driver simply
looks at the colour of the light rather than at people wanting to cross.
Far from making junctions safer, the array of signs and markings on modern
roads distract road-users from the task of safely negotiating a route past
other people.
The concept of "shared space" was pioneered in the Netherlands, where
traffic lights and signs were removed from several junctions. Despite
widespread predictions of chaos and carnage, the approach has reduced the
number of crashes and made car journeys quicker.
The maximum speed through the shared space will fall to 20mph, as it is
impossible to establish eye contact when travelling any faster, but drivers
will save time by no longer having to wait for a green light if there is a
gap at the junction. Pedestrians will be able to cross anywhere.
Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an urban designer who has helped to draw up the plans
for Exhibition Road, said that motorists would still have full access to
the road, but it would be like driving through a campsite. "You don't need
signs everywhere on a campsite telling you to give way or stop or slow
down, because its blindingly obvious what you need to do," he said.
Drivers would also be more responsible for any accidents as they would no
longer be able to argue that people "just stepped out into the road".
Kensington & Chelsea Council, the lead authority on the Exhibition Road
project, also plans to apply shared space principles to Sloane Square by
removing the roundabout and creating two large pedestrian areas outside the
Royal Court Theatre and Peter Jones department store.
Wiltshire County Council has tested removing white lines from the centre of
urban roads and found that accidents fell by 35 per cent.
Tafia said:
Why don't these clowns pedestrianise the street? Ah but it's not about that is it?
Why deliberately create conflict? I don't believe accidents fell elsewhere. Pedestrians probably fell. This is utter madness.
More garbage from the communists. Story begins...........
Why don't you believe it? The Netherlands is an excellent place to live, you can cycle along in absolute safety. Many areas have been prioritised for pedestrians, which in towns and cities is exactly how things should be.
Look at the roads today - a plethora of signs, high kerbs, white dividers between lanes with red paint, marked bus lanes, lights, crossings, painted directions, etc etc! Its madness.
I had an argument with the planning dept at our last place.
According to the drawings the roads should have had full pedestrian pavements.
When the place was built the pavements were deleted in the name of cost cutting.
The council came up with a similar excuse for their retrospective planning approval, shared space, drivers will recognise the dangers etc.
Their pie in the sky thinking didn't allow for the monied chav family two streets away and the son with a Cossie who regularly used to ...... Well let's just say it ended with him going down for 12 months, and he wasn't as hard as he thought he was.
According to the drawings the roads should have had full pedestrian pavements.
When the place was built the pavements were deleted in the name of cost cutting.
The council came up with a similar excuse for their retrospective planning approval, shared space, drivers will recognise the dangers etc.
Their pie in the sky thinking didn't allow for the monied chav family two streets away and the son with a Cossie who regularly used to ...... Well let's just say it ended with him going down for 12 months, and he wasn't as hard as he thought he was.
I think it has it's place, however, on main routes I'm not so sure. I've seen it myself in the Netherlands and Germany, it seems to work well there, and it does add something to the look of place. The ones I've seen have been either block paved or cobbled.
The down side is I'm not sure how it would work here with the "bloody minded" British "attitude". I can see scrotes and chavs throwing themselves under cars to make a claim. Now, how are we to decide blame? Some interesting damages claims will be appearing in the courts I think.
The down side is I'm not sure how it would work here with the "bloody minded" British "attitude". I can see scrotes and chavs throwing themselves under cars to make a claim. Now, how are we to decide blame? Some interesting damages claims will be appearing in the courts I think.
Tafia said:Just had a thought on this.
The maximum speed through the shared space will fall to 20mph....
If it is deemed safer not to have road markings, as it will make drivers think more responsibly towards pedestrians, why is there the need for a maximum speed limit of 20mph at the site of this experiment - surely having a max speed limit will encourage drivers to drive at that speed and defeats the very theory this experiment is supposed to prove.
To continue this idea, we should dispense with all speed limits, as we would all become more aware of our responsibilities towards other road users and the conditions.
There y'go - sorted! But which politician is going to support it?
If it's a shared road space, what's to stop pedestrians walking in the middle of the 'road', holding up traffic like you get in a market street, when a van has to crawl along at 1mph, to avoid pedestrians.
It's one thing for a pedestrain to step in front of the other, they collide and exchange 'sorry'. It's quite another if the pedestrians steps into a car's path 20mph. Even 20mph can cause serious injuries.
I'm looking forward to see how this experiment works, but I think that removing pavements may be a step too far. IMO you need some physical separation from 3mph 80kg biologicals from 20mph 1500kg mechanicals.
It's one thing for a pedestrain to step in front of the other, they collide and exchange 'sorry'. It's quite another if the pedestrians steps into a car's path 20mph. Even 20mph can cause serious injuries.
I'm looking forward to see how this experiment works, but I think that removing pavements may be a step too far. IMO you need some physical separation from 3mph 80kg biologicals from 20mph 1500kg mechanicals.
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