Road signs suck. What if we got rid of them all?

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This concept assumes much higher intelligence in most of the population and trades order for anxiety.

👍︎︎ 28 👤︎︎ u/stuntaneous 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

Narrator in this video has obviously never been to South East Asia.

Sure, the roads may be safer because everyone is cautious but they are also heavily congested and slow.

In Saigon, you can just about walk faster than vehicle traffic; it also restricts emergency services and logistics - grinds the entire city to a halt.

Pass.

👍︎︎ 77 👤︎︎ u/marmz1 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

Cool concept, but I wonder the extent to which the novelty of 'shared spaces' contributes to their increase in safety.

The video said it itself: people feel anxious using shared spaces. Maybe that's why they're so cautious. People aren't used to the environment, so they are anxious when they are in the environment, and as a result, their senses of awareness are heightened. What happens when shared spaces are ubiquitous, and people are no longer anxious in them? My guess is that accidents will start to go up again.

👍︎︎ 17 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

It's astonishing how much status quo bias there is in this thread. I have experienced the advantage of "shared space" effects first hand where I live as a result of several blackouts over the past few years. In particular, there is one 6-way intersection that is absolutely atrocious to pass through that springs to mind. On any given day, with traffic lights operational, this intersection is terrible to pass through. It takes forever. On 4 separate occasions now, I have experienced passing through that intersection when the traffic light wasn't working during busy hours. If you had told me that the traffic light was out at that intersection, I would've avoided it like the plague, assuming it would be an absolute nightmare, but, to my surprise, those 4 incidents have to be the fastest I have ever seen traffic progress through that intersection. If it works at that insane intersection, it'll work in a lot of other places.

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/nauticalsandwich 📅︎︎ Nov 25 2017 đź—«︎ replies

Oddly, at no point does the narrator reflect on some of the fundamental prerequisites for the success of shared spaces -- namely, pedestrian laws, a sense of civic duty, and a culture of mutual respect on the road. There's a reason he focuses on the UK and Netherlands. In the vast majority of towns and cities around the developing world (in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, etc.) shared spaces would be an absolute disaster for drivers and pedestrians alike.

👍︎︎ 90 👤︎︎ u/philanthropr 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

I’m from Poynton and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone here say anything positive about the shared space.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/Alidodger 📅︎︎ Nov 25 2017 đź—«︎ replies

"70% of people feel worried when crossing [this shared space] and 80% felt safer the way it was previously"

I HAVE A PAOINT TO MAKE!!! "well the way it used to be way back in the day was more like the point i'm trying to make in this video and not the subject of that survey question I just referenced."

Fun vid, but I wish it was presented a little less dishonestly (not saying he's lying, but I'd prefer a little less misdirection before I've had my coffee).

👍︎︎ 21 👤︎︎ u/PoopsForDays 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

Streets signs are for 2 purposes, removing a municipality from liability, and keeping you safe.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/razorbackgeek 📅︎︎ Nov 24 2017 đź—«︎ replies

As someone who is fascinated by road sign and highways, this title concerns me.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/ZJPV1 📅︎︎ Nov 25 2017 đź—«︎ replies
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If I showed you two big intersections — one with a bunch of signs, traffic lights, and boundaries, and one with no markings or apparent rules at all — which one would look safer to you? Towns all over Europe are starting to experiment with streets like this: where cars, bikes, buses, and people can travel freely in the same space. I think this looks like an accident waiting to happen. But I know someone who would know a lot more about this than I do. I’m Roman Mars from 99 Percent Invisible. And that’s what urban planners often refer to as a “shared space” design strategy. It seems counterintuitive, but there’s evidence that getting rid of all signs and barriers might make our streets a lot safer. So — how does it work? There’s a spot in Google street view where you can witness a town undergoing this exact transformation. This is Poynton, England — about 20 minutes away from Manchester. Here’s the city center in May 2011: there’s a mess of signs and lights, a few small sidewalks, and some haphazard guardrails to keep pedestrians safe. And here it is in July 2015. Traffic lights, road signs, curbs — all gone. “Something very strange is happening on the streets of Britain — I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in some places, pavements and roads have been blurring into one with cars, buses, and pedestrians all sharing the same space.” The town spent 4 million pounds to expand sidewalk space and strip the city center of traditional demarcations. Now, the only marker left is this little sign: Poynton shared space village. The concept is that the absence of separation will make everyone more cautious — so commuters slow down, make eye contact, and negotiate. Watch what happens when a boy in Poynton is encouraged to cross the street without waiting for the cars to clear the intersection. Because cars don’t spend time waiting at traffic lights, it takes less time on average for them to get through the crossing. Even when bikers and pedestrians are absent, cars drive slow due to a concept called “edge friction.” It’s the idea that nearby vertical elements in a driver’s peripheral vision — like trees or lamps, create a visual cue for how fast they’re going. On a highway, those are often totally absent, so the sidelines blur. In a shared space, those lines play an important mental trick to slow down drivers. In theory, shared space works well for pedestrians, allowing them to follow their desired path while walking. Instead of being limited to a strict path, they can walk exactly in the direction they want to go. n In practice, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Video footage of a shared space at Elwick Square in Ashford, England shows that pedestrians’ mostly still stick to crosswalks, or where a crosswalk would be. That’s largely because these layouts are stressful: The majority of a survey group asked about crossing Elwick Square reported feeling anxious about it. And those pedestrians frequently report that they prefer things the way they used to be. But the “way things used to be” is relative. If you look at old footage of city streets in the early 1900s, cars mixed freely with pedestrians, bicyclists, and streetcars. Vehicles couldn’t go very fast back then, so there wasn’t a huge concern about separating them from walkers and bikers. With plenty of city streets, that’s still the case without any intentional urban planning. But the big question is whether these deliberately stripped-down designs actually make people safer. It seems that in many cases, they do. For one thing, we know that the number of accidents drops after shared spaces are installed. In Ipswich, rates of accidents involving injuries fell from 23 over three years to just one per year. In London’s Kensington High Street, the number of pedestrians injured dropped by nearly 60 percent. And in Drachten in the Netherlands, accidents at one intersection fell from 36 in four years to two in two years. We also know that shared spaces are quantifiably more free-flowing based on analysis of traffic conflicts. With video footage like this from Exhibition Road in London, analysts can rate the severity of a traffic conflict based on participants’ speed and change of course. Before the shared space renovation, one pedestrian had to step back onto the sidewalk to avoid a departing car. Another broke out into a sprint to avoid getting hit by an oncoming van. After the shared space installation, traffic conflicts were less frequent and less severe on average — like this, where pedestrians wait for a cab to cross before continuing. Or this one, where a cyclist changes course to avoid pedestrians. But that doesn’t mean these designs work for everyone. “I think it’s the most ludicrous idea I’ve ever heard. What about blind people? Children?” From the beginning, shared space designs have been under fire for providing insufficient protections for disabled pedestrians, especially the visually impaired. “The family of a pensioner who died a month after being hit by a bus have called for traffic lights to be reinstalled at the junction.” “Traffic lights here were recently removed to make way for a so-called shared space, but it’s a move that has angered David’s family” “I’m sure if the traffic lights were there, this wouldn’t have happened” A 2015 House of Lords report called for a temporary ban on shared space designs. And in August 2016 a select committee of the House of Commons launched an inquiry into the accessibility of such environments. Their final report in April 2017 asked the government to put all shared space schemes on hold until they improved the process of consulting disabled communities. Preliminary designs like these by the Danish Building Research Institute give us an idea of what that balance might look like. They include both the mixed traffic of shared space and the raised street textures and button-activated crosswalks that disabled users are used to. Shared spaces can be effective, but for this kind of plan to work across communities, it will require a lot more research to determine what will work in different places and what will serve the needs of all the people sharing the streets.
Info
Channel: Vox
Views: 3,220,199
Rating: 4.8227153 out of 5
Keywords: vox.com, vox, explain, traffic, shared, space, hans monderman, design, urban, urbanism, planning, city, cities, town, roads, streets, naked streets, bbc, england, europe, structure, 99% invisible, ben hamilton-baille, radiotopia, cars, transportation, safety, pedestrian, walkable, living, health, transit, transport, shared streets
Id: VUbsFtLkGN8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)
Published: Fri Nov 24 2017
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