Better Road Signs or NO Road Signs

scotty72 Wrote:
I remember seeing a tv programme about (presumably) this place. It
seemed to work like a charm. Even their busiest intersections were
dramatically calmed. Accident rates plummented to near zero and av
speeds went down too.

This subject has been mentioned on a.b before, and I'm slightly amazed
no ones quoted the name of Hans Monderman yet. Ok, someone has now.
http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/general/...etails.htm#bio

Read this excellent Wired interview where Monderman expounds his
theories. His six points for better intersections, which hardly are
unknown or illogical are at the end of the article. Full text below for
those with limited internerd access.

Roads Gone Wild
No street signs. No crosswalks. No accidents. Surprise: Making driving
seem more dangerous could make it safer.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html

Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he
can put up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous
curve warning on a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to
be not only annoying but downright dangerous. To him, they are an
admission of failure, a sign - literally - that a road designer
somewhere hasn't done his job. "The trouble with traffic engineers is
that when there's a problem with a road, they always try to add
something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it's much better to remove
things."

Monderman is one of the leaders of a new breed of traffic engineer -
equal parts urban designer, social scientist, civil engineer, and
psychologist. The approach is radically counterintuitive: Build roads
that seem dangerous, and they'll be safer.

Monderman and I are tooling around the rural two-lane roads of northern
Holland, where he works as a road designer. He wants to show me a
favorite intersection he designed. It's a busy junction that doesn't
contain a single traffic signal, road sign, or directional marker, an
approach that turns eight decades of traditional traffic thinking on
its head.

Wearing a striped tie and crisp blue blazer with shiny gold buttons,
Monderman looks like the sort of stout, reliable fellow you'd see on a
package of pipe tobacco. He's worked as a civil engineer and traffic
specialist for more than 30 years and, for a time, ran his own driving
school. Droll and reserved, he's easy to underestimate - but his ideas
on road design, safety, and city planning are being adopted from
Scandinavia to the Sunshine State.

Riding in his green Saab, we glide into Drachten, a 17th-century
village that has grown into a bustling town of more than 40,000. We
pass by the performing arts center, and suddenly, there it is: the
Intersection. It's the confluence of two busy two-lane roads that
handle 20,000 cars a day, plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians.
Several years ago, Monderman ripped out all the traditional instruments
used by traffic engineers to influence driver behavior - traffic
lights, road markings, and some pedestrian crossings - and in their
place created a roundabout, or traffic circle.

The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or signals
telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to
behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and
sidewalk, so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the
pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is
utterly ambiguous - and that's the point.

Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes,
watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their
way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport.
Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of
crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are
made through fleeting eye contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly
around the circle with hardly a brake screeching, horn honking, or
obscene gesture.

"I love it!" Monderman says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to
avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the
cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks
out for each other. You can't expect traffic signs and street markings
to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the
design of the road."

It's no surprise that the Dutch, a people renowned for social
experimentation in practically every facet of life, have embraced new
ideas in traffic management. But variations of Monderman's less-is-more
approach to traffic engineering are spreading around the globe, showing
up in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the
US.

In Denmark, the town of Christianfield stripped the traffic signs and
signals from its major intersection and cut the number of serious or
fatal accidents a year from three to zero. In England, towns in Suffolk
and Wiltshire have removed lane lines from secondary roads in an effort
to slow traffic - experts call it "psychological traffic calming." A
dozen other towns in the UK are looking to do the same. A study of
center-line removal in Wiltshire, conducted by the Transport Research
Laboratory, a UK transportation consultancy, found that drivers with no
center line to guide them drove more safely and had a 35 percent
decrease in the number of accidents.

In the US, traffic engineers are beginning to rethink the dictum that
the car is king and pedestrians are well advised to get the hell off
the road. In West Palm Beach, Florida, planners have redesigned several
major streets, removing traffic signals and turn lanes, narrowing the
roadbed, and bringing people and cars into much closer contact. The
result: slower traffic, fewer accidents, shorter trip times.

"I think the future of transportation in our cities is slowing down the
roads," says Ian Lockwood, the transportation manager for West Palm
Beach during the project and now a transportation and design
consultant. "When you try to speed things up, the system tends to fail,
and then you're stuck with a design that moves traffic inefficiently and
is hostile to pedestrians and human exchange."

The common thread in the new approach to traffic engineering is a
recognition that the way you build a road affects far more than the
movement of vehicles. It determines how drivers behave on it, whether
pedestrians feel safe to walk alongside it, what kinds of businesses
and housing spring up along it. "A wide road with a lot of signs is
telling a story," Monderman says. "It's saying, go ahead, don't worry,
go as fast as you want, there's no need to pay attention to your
surroundings. And that's a very dangerous message."

We drive on to another project Monderman designed, this one in the
nearby village of Oosterwolde. What was once a conventional road
junction with traffic lights has been turned into something resembling
a public square that mixes cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. About 5,000
cars pass through the square each day, with no serious accidents since
the redesign in 1999. "To my mind, there is one crucial test of a
design such as this," Monderman says. "Here, I will show you."

With that, Monderman tucks his hands behind his back and begins to walk
into the square - backward - straight into traffic, without being able
to see oncoming vehicles. A stream of motorists, bicyclists, and
pedestrians ease around him, instinctively yielding to a man with the
courage of his convictions.

From the beginning, a central premise guiding American road design was
that driving and walking were utterly incompatible modes of transport,
and that the two should be segregated as much as possible.

The planned suburban community of Radburn, New Jersey, founded in 1929
as "a town for the motor age," took the segregation principle to its
logical extreme. Radburn's key design element was the strict separation
of vehicles and people; cars were afforded their own generously
proportioned network, while pedestrians were tucked safely away in
residential "super blocks," which often terminated in quiet cul de
sacs.

Parents could let kids walk to the local school without fearing that
they might be mowed down in the street. Radburn quickly became a
template for other communities in the US and Britain, and many of its
underlying assumptions were written directly into traffic codes.

The psychology of driver behavior was largely unknown. Traffic
engineers viewed vehicle movement the same way a hydraulics engineer
approaches water moving through a pipe - to increase the flow, all you
have to do is make the pipe fatter.

Roads became wider and more "forgiving" - roadside trees were cut down
and other landscape elements removed in an effort to decrease
fatalities. Road signs, rather than road architecture, became the chief
way to enforce behavior. Pedestrians, meanwhile, were kept out of the
traffic network entirely or limited to defined crossing points.

The strict segregation of cars and people turned out to have unintended
consequences on towns and cities. Wide roads sliced through residential
areas, dividing neighborhoods, discouraging pedestrian activity, and
destroying the human scale of the urban environment.

The old ways of traffic engineering - build it bigger, wider, faster -
aren't going to disappear overnight. But one look at West Palm Beach
suggests an evolution is under way. When the city of 82,000 went ahead
with its plan to convert several wide thoroughfares into narrow two-way
streets, traffic slowed so much that people felt it was safe to walk
there. The increase in pedestrian traffic attracted new shops and
apartment buildings. Property values along Clematis Street, one of the
town's main drags, have more than doubled since it was reconfigured.

"In West Palm, people were just fed up with the way things were, and
sometimes, that's what it takes," says Lockwood, the town's former
transportation manager. "What we really need is a complete paradigm
shift in traffic engineering and city planning to break away from the
conventional ideas that have got us in this mess. There's still this
notion that we should build big roads everywhere because the car
represents personal freedom. Well, that's bull****. The truth is that
most people are prisoners of their cars."

Today some of the most car-oriented areas in the US are rethinking
their approaches to traffic, mainly because they have little choice.
"The old way doesn't work anymore," says Gary Toth, director of project
planning and development for the New Jersey Department of
Transportation. The 2004 Urban Mobility Report, published by the
respected Texas Transportation Institute, shows that traffic congestion
is growing across the nation in towns and cities of all sizes. The
study's conclusion: It's only going to get worse.

Instead of widening congested highways, New Jersey's DOT is urging
neighboring or contiguous towns to connect their secondary streets and
add smaller centers of development, creating a series of linked
minivillages with narrow roads, rather than wide, car-choked highways
strewn with malls. "The cities that continue on their conventional path
with traffic and land use will harm themselves, because people with a
choice will leave," says Lockwood.

"They'll go to places where the quality of life is better, where
there's more human exchange, where the city isn't just designed for
cars. The economy is going to follow the creative class, and they want
to live in areas that have a sense of place. That's why these new ideas
have to catch on. The folly of traditional traffic engineering is all
around us."

Back in Holland, Monderman is fighting his own battle against the folly
of traditional traffic engineering, one sign at a time. "Every road
tells a story," Monderman says. "It's just that so many of our roads
tell the story poorly, or tell the wrong story."

As the new approach to traffic begins to take hold in the US, the road
ahead is unmarked and ambiguous. Hans Monderman couldn't be happier.


How to Build a Better Intersection: Chaos = Cooperation

1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals -
dictates traffic flow.

2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the
intersection is.

3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but
also the pedestrian areas.

4. Do it in the road: Cafes extend to the edge of the street, further
emphasizing the idea of shared space.

5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction,
rather than commonly ignored signs.

6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by
texture and color.


--
cfsmtb

On Apr 23, 5:00 pm, MikeyOz MikeyOz.2ph...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:
Bleve Wrote:



If "they're all out to kill me" works for you, then that's good, but
it does seem pretty sad, and must be very stressful. That would ruin
my pleasure in riding, if I felt like that all the time.

Just out of curiosity have you ever been cleaned up by a car while on a
pushie on the road ?

I've been hit by cars twice while on a motorcycle, but the damage was
far less than you sustained.

I am not saying because I have, I know everything,
just curious if it has happened to you ? Because ever since that
happened to me I have never been the same since, did I expect to be,
NO, I can't help it when ever I see a car attempting to do the same
thing that happend to me previously I get nervous and jittery, but its
getting better.

That's quite understandable, I get absolutely ****scared when I go ski-
ing and have to face my demons (I broke a knee and spent a year unable
to do much after a stupid fall at Hotham). Getting over that is ...
difficult. I still ski, but I get paranoid and have to give up for
the day once I run out of courage. Not the same thing, but I can
extrapolate from that to how I imagine you might feel.

As for my cynical point of view, I probably am a bit cynical but living
in the society we live in and having seen the things I have seen in life
and also the things I have seen in my professional life, I am really not
surprised.

I didn't mean the term as an insult, but as an accurate description.
A cynic is what a realist calls a pessmist, I think?

I did not say the Lawyers were responsible for everything, but they are
definately a major part of why common sense no longer exists today,
because a Lawyer somewhere is ready at the mention of money to defend
someone who has clearly shown a complete lack of common sense and will
usually defend the person sucessfully.

--
MikeyOz

On 2007-04-23, Bleve (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
On Apr 23, 3:53 pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
So how do people who say this is how they ride cope? How do they
manage to always be in such a position that no car anywhere has any
chance at all of ever hitting them (we'll presume no snipers) and
still actually get where they are going?

For a short amount of time when I was learning to ride motorbikes, I
used to feel like that (moving target etc) but I found that I was
incredibly stressed doing so and didn't enjoy riding. Especially
though high traffic merging areas (like the bridge across the Swan R
in Perth that goes to Vic Park, I can't remember its name?). I'd get
to places in a sweat with a huge sense of relief.

Hey, if it works for researchers, why shouldn't it work for riders?

"Why do you keep doing physics?"

"Because it feels so good when you stop!".

Hey, Tam, where are you anyway? You surely can't have gotten a real
life by now?

--
TimC
ALU n. Arthritic Logic Unit, or (rare) Arithmetic Logic Unit. A random
number generator supplied as standard with all computer systems. --unk

On Apr 23, 5:16 pm, cfsmtb cfsmtb.2ph...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:
scotty72 Wrote:

I remember seeing a tv programme about (presumably) this place. It
seemed to work like a charm. Even their busiest intersections were
dramatically calmed. Accident rates plummented to near zero and av
speeds went down too.

This subject has been mentioned on a.b before, and I'm slightly amazed
no ones quoted the name of Hans Monderman yet. Ok, someone has now.http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/general/...etails.htm#bio



Seen that, interesting (again ).

I wonder how well it works in areas with low traffic density? I can
see how well it would work at very busy intersections (the huge
roundabout at the top end of Elizabeth St, for example), but one place
where I suspect it wouldn't work so well would be country roads. I
see plenty of drivers overtaking on blind corners (is there anything
more dangerous to them and any oncoming traffic?) at 100km/h+ assuming
that there'll be no-one coming. Would removing lines alter that
behaviour? And in conjunction with liability rules concerning 'at
fault' etc how would it work? You only have to watch drivers in low
viz or otherwise more hazardous conditions (fog, heavy rain etc) to
see how badly many of them judge what's an appropriate speed to drive
at.

It also seems interesting when compared to the rather dramatic cut in
the road toll with the introduction of compulsory seat belts in the
70's. That, presumably, meant that drivers would feel safer, but the
impact was (and presumably still manifests itself as) a reduction in
deaths on the roads. Not, no doubt, an increase in road user safety
for non-car occupants though.

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:10:18 GMT
Fractal wrote:

I think it is mainly being trialled in towns or local suburban centres etc,
not major cities, although Groningen is pop. 180,000. The Dutch have been
doing "Woonerfen" for years, where they design or encourage local
residential streets to be seen as backyards with gardens and chairs acting
as traffic calming devices and no kerbs, and car drivers are expected to
behave as visitors, who have no special right of way, as I understand it. A
bit alien to most Aussie cities.

Many years ago, there was The Epsom Avenue Cricket Game.

Epsom Avenue is in Belmont, a feeder road right by the racetrack so
already cars had learned to be careful. A ton of nervous animal being
led by some bod 4 foot nothing and 5 stone wringing wet and which is
probably worth more than your house and owned by someone with white
pointer lawyers on retainer and who keeps grudges till they are embalmed
is a road hazard that really encourages people to slow down and be polite.

The cricket game would start up around early December. It was mostly
on weekends but would occasionally happen on weekdays. The wicket was
either a metal wicket or if no one could remember where that was, a metal
rubbish bin. The teams were fluid, the rules normal street cricket.
And the cars just had to wait till the ball was returned to the bowler
because no one was moving till then.

Was a pleasant place to live really.

Zebee

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 23 Apr 2007 17:00:13 +1000
MikeyOz wrote:

Just out of curiosity have you ever been cleaned up by a car while on a
pushie on the road ? I am not saying because I have, I know everything,
just curious if it has happened to you ? Because ever since that
happened to me I have never been the same since, did I expect to be,
NO, I can't help it when ever I see a car attempting to do the same
thing that happend to me previously I get nervous and jittery, but its
getting better.

I was cleaned up by a car on the open road when on my motorcycle. He
was passing trucks on a blind corner. Took about 3 years before I
could handle left hand corners at night without fear.

It does get better. But takes a very long time


Zebee

warrwych Wrote:
the best (in terms of fellow driver courtesy & politeness, and safety)
drive home in peak hour traffic, was recently (Feb???) when large
sections of Melbourne blacked out and traffic lights were out all over
the place. I was dreading the drive home, but instead, traffic was calm
and sensible.

That's because all those cars had airconditioners and the drivers knew
that when they got home their houses would not be a pleasant 18 degrees
('twas pretty hot that day), so no-one was in a hurry to get home as
usual.


Pat


--
vaudegiant

The Law of Tort has complicated things in Western society, and Roads
Departments on "legal advice" have developed ever complex signage to
support their assumption they have to "warn" of hazards or
stipulations to encourage compliance with regulations or commonsense
behaviour. Sadly this has got out of hand.

I like signs that tell me where I am or where I can find where I am
going...that is all, signs which give advance warning of 'hazards
ahead et al" delay or end the appreciation of the need to keep a proper
look out at all times.

Keeping a proper lookout is the basis of plaintiff's obligation in a
tort, if the plaintiff does that, then if damage occurs the plaintiff
seeks then to prove that whoever owed a duty of care breached that duty
and the plaintiff mitigated or negated contributory negaligence.

These fundamental principles have got out of hand and now we have
cautionary signs stuck up our nose for every imaginable absurdity and
we have been overun by "Nanny State" protection from ourselves.

This stuff is why we have the term "helicopter mum" and why people are
obese and why bloody minded drivers want bike riders off the roads and
on paths, and a myriad of other social disasters....

The obligation to look out for ourselves and each other has been eroded
to the extent that all problems are the fault of the system...the
government or anyone else but ourselves and the choices we each make in
our lives.

I applaud the action taken by the town(s) in Holland and hope this
trend gathers worldwide momentum.


--
rooman

Bleve Wrote:


I wonder how well it works in areas with low traffic density? I can
see how well it would work at very busy intersections (the huge
roundabout at the top end of Elizabeth St, for example), but one place
where I suspect it wouldn't work so well would be country roads. I
see plenty of drivers overtaking on blind corners (is there anything
more dangerous to them and any oncoming traffic?) at 100km/h+ assuming
that there'll be no-one coming.

With low traffic density, numerous examples already exist in the inner
suburbs where cars, cyclists and peds have to yield in narrow
residential streets with no lane markings. I see this often, with a car
giving way to an oncoming vehicle by temporarily ducking into the curb.


Sometimes, surprise, surprise, drivers even extend the same courtesy to
me. Given Monderman has developed his traffic model in Europe, some
concessions should be developed for Australian conditions, i.e.: some
signage would be necessary to due vast distances (by comparison to
Europe) country intersections, poor sight lines, geography and level
x-ings.


--
cfsmtb

"rooman" wrote:

The Law of Tort has complicated things in Western society, and Roads
Departments on "legal advice" have developed ever complex signage to
support their assumption they have to "warn" of hazards or
stipulations to encourage compliance with regulations or commonsense
behaviour. Sadly this has got out of hand.

I like signs that tell me where I am or where I can find where I am
going...that is all, signs which give advance warning of 'hazards
ahead et al" delay or end the appreciation of the need to keep a proper
look out at all times.

Keeping a proper lookout is the basis of plaintiff's obligation in a
tort, if the plaintiff does that, then if damage occurs the plaintiff
seeks then to prove that whoever owed a duty of care breached that duty
and the plaintiff mitigated or negated contributory negaligence.

These fundamental principles have got out of hand and now we have
cautionary signs stuck up our nose for every imaginable absurdity and
we have been overun by "Nanny State" protection from ourselves.

The extreme of this 'nanny' approach would have to be the range of new
yellow warning signs found today on many of our rural secondary roads, like
this:
http://sports.webshots.com/photo/220...74746151zdehFp

Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious!! But I guess without it some drunk
hoon will sue the local council because there was no warning about the
f%#&in' forest!



--
Cheers
Peter

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