EnigManiac

Once again, the Dutch are being more innovative than anyone else when it comes to moving people around. They developed a philosophy called 'shared space' where roads are without sidewalks, stop signs, speed limits or any other control measures. They claim it makes the street safer for everyone. Motorists immediately slow down because there could be any number of other users sharing their space. They don't feel they have the right to the road.

Apparently, it has been tried in the Dutch town of Drachten, population 50,000, for the past seven years where stop lights, stop signs, yields, etc. have all been removed, except for three remaining traffic signals that are slated to be removed over the next year or so. I've read that they used to have one traffic fatality every three years, but have had none in the past seven---since the project when it went into effect and they've had a 60% reduction in accidents. It's also being tried in Germany and there are efforts to try it in England.

It sounds like anarchy, but it isn't. It removes the onus of responsibility from the government (traffic control) and returns the onus onto the user of the road, forcing them to act intelligently and rationally. It works because it's dangerous. It makes everyone more cautious. Motorists proceed slower, because pedestrians, cyclists---everyone---have the same right to the space as everyone else. It isn't necessarily 'theirs.' There's no sense of entitlement or assumption that pedestrians must remain on the sidewalk, cyclists to the right and motorists in the 'traffic lane.'

Would it work where you live?

https://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/sto...10/04/naked-st...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ml=/news/2006/...
https://www.hopfensperger.co.uk/index...haredSpace.htm
https://www.hamilton-baillie.co.uk/papers/14_TEC.pdf

genec

I donno. It is an interesting idea. Locally an "island" community has a somewhat similar approach... Coronado island has long been known for not using stop signs on the community streets, and their traffic situation is somewhat tame.

But I wonder if that approach would work in places where motorists might already be driving too fast... somewhat regardless of the law anyway?

sbhikes

It's worth a try. Not sure it would work in my neighborhood. A lot of people see lack of traffic control devices as legitimizing blasting through the intersection without looking for others.

rando

it might work. I'm trying to visualize how it would be on one of our local urban freeways where people like to drive about 50 mph. so, there's bikes, walkers, scooters, strollers and dogs and stuff all over the roadway, and no markings or lights? jeez. some people would be pissed, no doubt. but the chaos would slow people down. and would no doubt be a little dangerous? Hm.

Keith99

I remember the last major Quake in Los Angeles. A lot of traffic lights out. I went out (car) that morning and went right back home after crossing one major street. About 10% of the few cars out seemed to think no light means I can blow through anything.

With the recent winds did a pretty fair amount of damage, not counting the fires. One near me was just one traffic light out one day. That turned the one block between the previous light and that one from a less than one minute to over 5 minutes. Try taking out traffic control and you change 45 minute commutes to 4 to 5 hour commutes.

No thanks.

BTW the supposed safety increase is very likely transitory. Things are different so people slow down. But a few weeks to months later people are used to it and start speeding back up.

randya

Possibly, but I think Americans have too great a sense of entitlement

barba

Dutch ≠ American.

San Rensho 

Oh this would work great here in Miami, road rage capital of the world. I'm sure all the Hummers with cow catchers on the front would immediately yield to others, stop, get out of their cars to escort little old ladies across the street, start a back and forth match of "No please, you go first, I insist" with cyclists.

Unfortunately, you can't compare the US with a civilized, forward looking, peaceable country like Holland.

maddyfish

It would work in my town just fine. Nice people, nice drivers, nice town.

noisebeam

Uhhh, the local urban freeway SLs are either 55 or 65mph and bicycles are banned. I think the idea is for non-freeway roads, roads that already serve pedestrians and cyclists.

This link provides nice overview of which freeways are open to cyclists in AZ:
https://www.azbikeclub.com/interst.html

Note that every urban freeway is closed to cyclists as there are always equivalent if not better routes available to every destination served by the freeway.

Al

joelpalmer

In a word, no. Not in Baltimore. In smaller communities where the driving is a little more reasonable to begin with I think it would, but reasonable and Baltimore are words that will never appear together.

Helmet Head

For the most part, I think bicyclists are better off the fewer traffic controls - including stripes, stop signs and traffic signals - there are.

But as a motorist, and one who benefits from motoring, there is something to be said for optimizing throughput on arterials.

In short, I think the approach has good application in many business and residential "pockets", but not along main arterials.

StephenH

I don't see how this is innovative at all. Isn't this what most places were like a 100 or 150 years ago? Weren't all these stripes, barriers, speed bumps, signals, signs, etc., put up specifically to try to solve problems that were there in their absence?

Maybe they've proved that if you have nice considerate people, you don't need traffic laws. But the same is true of most of our legal system; if we'd just all get along, we wouldn't need all these silly laws.

Bruce_B

It might, after enough people were killed.

Bruce_B

Where is this? I might want to move there

rando

Al,

I'm talking about 4-6 lane surface streets, that's what I meant by urban freeway.

EnigManiac

The results say just exactly the opposite happens. In every community where the project has been applied, they have experienced anywhere from 30-50% reduction in speed, whereas conventional methods only achieved 10-20% reduction. A sharp decline in serious accidents has already occured with a dramatic decrease in deaths as well.

Dchiefransom

It would work here, and the sales of larger and larger vehicles would increase exponentially.

Bruce_B

Has it been tried in the US? I just can't imagine it working with the psychopaths driving around my area.

noisebeam

Those are usually called arterials, hardly like freeways in design nor traffic patterns & speeds.

I think fewer traffic controls would work for residential streets, but not for arterials, nor the roads that intersect them.

Another issue is crossing arterials. I find during rush hour when I have a stop sign to cross a multilane arterial there often is never a sufficient gap to cross. At one intersection I use 1/wk a traffic light was installed 2wks ago. I find it much more relaxing (and possible) to cross between 4-6pm with the traffic light in place.

If instead the stop sign was removed for the x-street I don't see how it would change the ROW, the 45mph arterial would still not stop for the smaller 25mph cross street. Unless the law was change to require every intersection to be treated like a 4-way stop.

Now if all streets were changed to 25mph streets, the concept would work better, but with disparities in traffic volumes, road width (# lanes) and speeds, I can't see it working.

Al

noisebeam

There has to be an widespread acceptance of such a system for it to work, one that depends deeply on a shared social responsibility for each other vs. everyone for themselves, winner take all.

I spent many weeks in Argentina, half of which of which I drove myself (and the others I spend many hours in buses often in the front seat 2nd deck over the driver). While there are traffic controls at intersections, they are not in place in many. ROW is determined fully by who is the most assertive driver with the largest vehicle. Pedestrians are lowest, no where even at cross walks will a motorist stop for a pedestrian, even one trying to start crossing. At intersections the driver who is 'bigger' takes the ROW, bigger in vehicle size and in driving style including increasing speed at intersection approach and flashing headlights.
Overtaking constantly on 'highways' is universal, on a busy freeway like roads (but one lane each way with no paved shoulder) a typical driver may spend 30-40% of the time overtaking slower vehicles. I was able to approach 25-30% The bus drivers would often over take with an approaching vehicle in the opposing lane, then honk and flash lights forcing oncoming vehicle to move onto dirt shoulder, force is too strong a word, it was just normal to move to shoulder if a vehicle was coming your way and flashing lights. Might takes the ROW, sometimes if the vehicle in the other lane was an even larger truck or more assertive driver, the bus driver would move to the dirt shoulder. Tailgating was redefined for me. How close drivers followed each other before pushing a crazy overtake on steep curving mountain roads was measured in inches, not feet.
I got to enjoy it somewhat, putting all that assertiveness and sometimes aggressiveness into driving, but I was still an underdog and it wore me out especially in larger cities. It takes nerves and an intense vigilance. It was somewhat miserable being a pedestrian. I suppose it feels the norm for most, I hardly had time to adapt, let alone have it become habitual to the point it felt more comfortable.
How well it works from a safety/accident perspective, I don't know, probably quite a bit better than one would expect.

Al

Bruce_B

Would it be similar to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

csr

Or to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9DLlMMXhKg

I think combined with some disincentives for motor vehicle ownership it could work. Note that bicycles are well-established in the Netherlands anyway, moreso than here (US).

genec

Al a bit of clarification about the term "urban freeways." These are high speed arterials that motorists treat as a freeway.... but they in fact have stoplights and pedestrians and cyclists... however, the movement of traffic on such roads tends to be heavy and fast, well above the speed limit.

W McDowell Road in PHX might be a good illustration... (I remember driving into PHX and getting on this road and not believing how motorists "pushed" on this road)

Baseline may be another one of these "urban freeways."

The other distinguishing characteristic is the use of free merges, multilane merges and wide radius sweeping turns at intersections... almost freeway like "ramps." Some of these urban freeways go directly to real limited access freeways, not even having true on-ramps but simply becoming the actual freeway.

noisebeam

OK, but these roads (locally - these elements you refer to in the last paragraph are very limited) have none of the characteristics of freeways, with at speed exists usually far apart (except urban ones ) and speeds 20-30mph faster than arterials. Arterials here have many driveway, side street entrances, stoplights every .5-1mi, a shared left turn lane. Traffic is stop and go in nature vs. constant higher speed on a freeway. Negotiation with traffic/drivers is quite possible on arterials, on limited access freeways I would not stay in the outside lane (illegal anyway) and would never try to negotiate a left merge, or into the right lane when passing an exit.

I cycle on McDowell fairly often (mainly weekends) and Baseline even more so. The roads are not any different than any of the other arterials that are spaced on a 1mi grid in metro-phx. Baseline has a NOL, but also three same direction lanes, so taking the lane even in rush hour for my commute home is quite manageable. Yes these roads are busy and fast, but that does not make them like a freeway.

Al