In “Why did the pedestrian not
cross the road?” I noted that downtown promoters and merchants have
become concerned about the risks to workers, shoppers and tourists downtown
posed by careless drivers, especially at street crossings. There’s been talk
about lower speed limits, or construction of more traffic-calming devices.
Pedestrian-vehicle conflicts are a problem in
Springfield because there aren’t enough pedestrian-vehicle conflicts in
Springfield. In crowded cities, where traffic lanes are narrow, people cross at
mid-block and cars doors are flung open unexpectedly on their traffic sides, a
driver is obliged to be more alert. The paradoxical result is that the more
crowded a roadways is, the safer it is.
The experienced big-city driver develops a
tolerance for, even a comfort with, this complexity. But his small-town
counterpart regards the best driving experience as not the safest or even the
fastest, but the one that demands least from the driver.” The riskiest street for
pedestrians is the one on which drivers don’t expect to see them.
What happens in cities by circumstance happens by design in
so-called shared streets. On a shared street, walkers and vehicles are not strictly segregated,
speed limits are low, and in some versions there are no traffic control
devices. As I noted in my recent screed on the subject, instead
of watching and taking account of other road users (including pedestrians and
cyclists) drivers are watching for (and being distracted by) flashing lights,
pavement markings and warning signs. On
a shared street, drivers must pay attention to what and who is in the road, not
what’s beside it or over it.
Shared streets are becoming common in Europe, and
the concept is being tried in Chicago, in the Little Saigon area of Uptown. But
even Springfield drivers are familiar with the concept, sort of, in places
where the pavement is not clearly marked, where there are no no speed limits, where people
wander into and across the spaces intended for cars.
Of course, I’m describing the parking lots of larger
stores and malls. These are interesting in-between places, not quite streets,
not quite not streets. People wander in the aisles used by cars, there being no place else to walk. Being off the
street, they think they are safer than they are and don’t look around them. The environment demands that the driver adjust to walkers safely, and most people do it
perfectly well.
Might shared streets work downtown too? Maybe,
by shunting through traffic onto, say, 9th. Worth talking about.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.
