9th February 2006

This article appeared in the Editor's Choice in Resurgence online magazine March/April 2006

Green streets are 'naked streets' 

Just published on the internet  is a new easy-read report looking at a radical approach to our roads. Philip Booth, one of the authors of the report and a Press Officer for the Gloucestershire Green party explains more:

Initially I was far from interested in helping Green party Stroud District councillor, Sarah Lunnon research traffic engineering. The world of traffic and traffic management seemed cold, unfriendly, uniform, predictable and vehicle-orientated. Answers to reducing dangers on our roads, beyond reducing car use, appeared to lie only in further segregating vehicles and pedestrians by adding more signs, barriers, signals and road paint.

Indeed, encouraged by a reduction in casualty figures for such an approach, I was one of those who had previously supported more road humps, bumps, chicanes, warning signs, protective guard rails and more.

My interest in the research was sparked, when Sarah pointed out that a closer look at the statistics shows that this approach has come at a cost: our 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 coming from Europe, 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 improve the built environment without adversely effecting traffic flows. Indeed in many areas congestion was reduced.

 
"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."
Hans Monderman, pioneer of ‘Shared Spaces’ recounting his thoughts after the first speed checks from his first project in 1984.

His work showed that it was essential to make explicit the transition between the traffic zone and the shared spaces of the public realm in our towns and villages. The work of behavioural psychologists has since supported this: high speed roads demand different cognitive skills to those of shared public spaces. The traffic zone requires standardised, simple, repetitive signs and signals, but if these are present in shared spaces then people are less responsive to normal human behaviour. Hence cycle lanes can bring benefits in a traffic zone but help less in the shared spaces.

To put it in other words, it is only when the road is made less predictable and less certain that drivers will stop looking at signs and start looking at other people. As Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a leading Urban design specialist said: “Instead of relying on the street system for security, drivers are forced to use their reactions.”

 
"The biggest mistake that we can make as traffic engineers is to give people the illusion of safety."
Hans Monderman at the Friesland Regional Organisation for Traffic Safety

David Engwicht, author of the excellent ‘Mental Speed Bumps - The smarter way to tame traffic” notes a child playing on the pavement can be more effective at slowing traffic than a speed hump. The speed of traffic on residential streets is governed, to a large extent, by the degree to which residents have psychologically retreated from their street. By reversing this retreat we create ‘mental speed bumps’ in the street.  As David Engwicht says the key is “to understand that safety is maximised when false sense of security is minimised.”

Here at last was a Greener approach to traffic engineering: a more diverse, unpredictable, voluntary, personal and people-orientated approach. An approach that has parallels in the Slow Food and Slow Cities movements, which are about striking a balance and living everything better in our hectic modern world - about recognising the benefits of doing things in a more human, less frenetic manner.

In Drachten, in Holland a busy intersection, with over 22,000 vehicles a day, has been redesigned without signs as a more attractive integral part of the town’s public realm; congestion and safety improved. It is even claimed you can safely walk backwards across it with your eyes closed.

Successes like Drachten have led to schemes spreading to Denmark, Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden and Spain. The UK has been slower, but we are starting to see these ideas being explored. In a pioneering scheme in Kensington High Street, guard rails were removed and led to a significant drop in injuries, while the busy shopping area of Shrewsbury High Street has been much improved by removing the usual signs and signals. Other schemes are planned around the country including an ambitious project in Exhibition Road in London.

 
“Planners and engineers said, when they separated motor vehicles from pedestrians, that they have designed it perfectly. All we have to do is use it properly. But people are messy, they don't want to follow a system. Early data suggests ending street apartheid is good for business and bringing down casualty rates.”
Cllr. Daniel Moylan, Deputy Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (July 2005)

The CPRE, Women’s Institute and English Heritage all have campaigns to encourage improvements. Nottingham City Council have even appointed a ‘Clutter Buster’ to remove redundant signage and street furniture including over 10,000 ‘No waiting at any time’ plates.

To me it is astonishing that it has taken us so long to wake up to how our roads look. Public involvement in architectural decisions is rightly taken for granted, but such debate about what happens to our streets is virtually non-existent. Too readily we have accepted the ugliness of standardised traffic engineering as an inconvenient necessity for safe and efficient traffic flows.

Some 30 to 40 percent of public space lies in the realm of the traffic engineer. If we wish to make our cities, towns and villages more coherent and more liveable then we need to give more consideration to this. As Bill Bryson, English Heritage Commissioner, said: “Nothing says more, nor more immediately, of how a nation feels about itself, than the way it dresses its streets.”

We have seen too many of our communities destroyed by some of our traditional approaches to traffic. This new approach is a breathe of fresh air and shows us how we can rebuild communities, reduce personal injuries and collisions, encourage more pedestrians and cyclists, improve our built environments and bring benefits to our local economies. And with cuts to congestion, no one can dismiss it as a Green anti-car campaign. Indeed it is increasingly getting cross-party support in many Councils around the land.

Here in Stroud, Sarah easily persuaded me to research and co-write a report on these ideas which is now available online. This led to a conference for local councillors, police, traffic engineers, contractors and more. Now there are moves to explore possible schemes locally.

"In London we have already started to see the benefits of such an approach in a number of projects and have had an astonishing drop in road deaths and casualties. I look forward to hearing about similar successes in Stroud and the rest of Gloucestershire."
Jenny Jones, London Assembly Member and the London Mayor's Road Safety Ambassador

A growing number of us across the country see that a traffic engineering revolution is on it's way - a revolution that brings the benefits mentioned but is also about restoring respect. Shared spaces gives people back responsibility - a responsibility they will know how to use.



The report, "Better Streets for Stroud District" by P Booth and Cllr. S. Lunnon, has been warmly welcomed by many including Mahmood Siddiqi, Chief Traffic Engineer for Kensington and Chelsea, Jenny Jones, Mayor of London's Road Safety Ambassador, Road Safety groups, and John Whitelegg, Professor of Sustainable Transport at Liverpool. It can be downloaded free from the Reports section of this website: www.glosgreenparty.org.uk