Sunday, March 21, 2010
Notes from a Walk
Lucy the Dog was walking me down Pleasant Street an hour or so ago when I eyed a car taking a left hand turn up Green Street, an obvious no-no. I assumed the driver was inebriated or just clueless, but as I reached the intersection I noted very few clues for people to miss. I couldn't find a "No Left Turn" sign and the "Do Not Enter" sign stands behind the fence surrounding the Brown Square renewal project.
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4 comments:
The Dutch town of Drachten has there are few demarcations between roads, bike paths and sidewalks.
The result has been slower speeds and increased safety, because everyone knows they have to be careful and vigilent of others. Segregating different types of traffic into different flows made people overly reliant on signs, lines and barriers instead of their own senses, the theory argues.
The only people who lose under such a regime are local bureaucrats and traffic control consultants, which may be why the Drachten experiment has not been replicated in a lot of other places.
I saw someone do that from Liberty St. onto State St. (made a right turn). Unfortunately for the person, a police cruiser was right there ... then when I got to the intersection (I was on foot), I realized there was no really obvious sign indicating that one should not turn right. At least not obvious to either me or the poor driver of the car. The policeman seemed sympathetic (as in, I didn't see him pulling out his ticket book).
They are called woonerfs in Holland, and HomeZones in the U.K.
A paragraph of my comment got eaten by a Blogger gremlin, but James Shanley knows the score.
Europe has been innovating these "no rules" traffic zones, and Americans with an interest in town planning should give them a look.
When the government gets out of the way and lets people behave like adults, people behave like adults.
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