When it comes to the performance and quality of our streets in cities around the world, the simple truth is that for now at least we are stuck with far more losers 
than winners. But that is only part of the story; and one of the tasks of World is to keep a weather eye out for projects and programs, tools and policies which open up the possibility of creating better streets and better cities. Here for example you have a conversation between a Brazilian environmentalist and a German scientist running a pioneering program for a low emisssions zone which is up and running in Berlin.
- By Lincoln Paiva , Green Mobility Brazil
(With kind thanks to the author for translating from the Portuguese original text which first appeared this week in http://mobilidadesustentavel.blog.uol.com.br/.)This week I talked with Mr. Martin Lutz, Responsible for the Department of Health, environment and quality of Air Berlin's Senate. He told me how Berlin instituted the LEZ (Low Emission Zone) in 2005, with the goal of reducing the emission of toxic gases emitted by vehicles, also spoke about the difficulties in convincing companies of logistics, small businessmen and the population which used highly polluting vehicles in areas of high concentration of toxic gas vehicle. Mr Lutz was directly responsible for the Deployment of Low Emission Zones in Berlin. Germany has implemented the most stringent policies regarding the vehicular emissions of harmful gases in Germany, he tells us how the LEZ has been reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the population's health.
Lincoln Paiva: What were the main barriers to the successful deployment of an LEZ (Low Emission Zones) in Berlin?
Martin Lutz: A number of preparatory steps had to be taken before putting the low emission zone (LEZ) into practice. As the LEZ is a selective traffic ban for the most polluting vehicles, a vehicle identification scheme was needed as a precondition for practical enforcement. According to our legislative framework, the Federal Government was in charge to come up with a respective regulation for a nationwide concept, which paved the way for implementing LEZ also in other German cities, if necessary. Contrary to the technically sophisticated approach in London and Stockholm with a CCTV--based automatic number recognition system, the German scheme is based on a simple sticker system for the window screen, which illustrates the emission category of each vehicle willing to enter the LEZ.
In addition, a market for retrofit kits for diesel particulate filter (DPF) needed to be built up, so that most of the diesel vehicles affected by the traffic ban could be upgraded by retrofitting them with a particle trap.
In order to allow vehicle owners to adapt to the emission criteria of the LEZ, for example by retrofitting or replacing their vehicle stock, a 2 1/2 year transition period was granted between the adoption of the scheme in August 2005 and its launch in January 2008. In addition, a more stringent stage 2 came into force in January 2010 with the Euro 4 emission standard as the basic criterion for all diesel vehicles, including light and heavy goods vehicles. Older diesel vehicles can be upgraded to that standards by a retrofit with a DPF.
More information on Berlin's LEZ and the vehicle labelling scheme can be found on our website http://www.berlin.de/sen/umwelt/luftqualitaet/en/luftreinhalteplan/umweltzone_allgemeines.shtml. The site www.lowemissionzones.eu
LP: Public attitudes toward the program?
Martin Lutz: While drawing up Berlin's clean air plan, which stipulates several measures including the LEZ, the concept went through a public consultation process, in order to gain support of the Berlin's citizens for the plan and for the LEZ in particular. Due to the long transition period and additional funding granted by the national government to those retrofitting their diesel car with a DPF the low emission zones was generally accepted by the urban population. However, resistance by truckers and business associations was also voiced, pointing to the economic burden because of the investment in new vehicles or in retrofitting emerging from the introduction of the LEZ. These concerns were accommodated by drawing up a set of rules under which individual temporary exemptions from the traffic ban could be granted to vehicle operators who can prove that they would run into severe economic problems because of the LEZ.
LP: What were the results? Was there a reduction of traffic?
Martin Lutz: After two years since the start of the Low Emission Zone in Berlin its success can be clearly seen in terms of an accelerated shift towards cleaner vehicles, reduced pollutant emissions and better air quality. While traffic flows have not changed due to the LEZ, the turnover of the vehicle fleet towards more cleaner vehicles has speeded up considerably, resulting in the first year of its introduction in 21% less exhaust particle emissions and 15% lower NOx emission from Berlin’s motor traffic. Measured concentrations of black carbon at kerbside spots decreased in 2008 by around 15%. Despite an increasing share of direct NO2-emissions, NO2 concentrations in Berlin have also decreased by 7-10%, after several years without a visible downward trend. With the recent launch of stage 2 of the LEZ its mitigation effect on the air pollution is expected to eventually reduce total particulate matter concentrations (PM10) by up to 10%.
LP: What are the health benefits accruing to a decrease in vehicle emissions and implementation of the LEZ?
Martin Lutz: Given the high toxicity of diesel particle emissions it can be expected that the LEZ-related drop in black carbon levels is also resulting in a fall of respiratory diseases and eventually in a reduction of premature mortality especially among the poorer population living along heavily trafficked roads. Concrete investigations have not yet been launched but are planned for the coming years, when more data on the effects on pollution levels and on public health will be available.
LP: You say that Berlin has simplified monitoring in relation to London. How does that work?
Martin Lutz: As mentioned above a simpler sticker system has come into force, which allows to clearly identify the vehicles allowed to enter the zone, which cover 88 km2 with almost one third of Berlin's 3.6 Mio inhabitants living in the LEZ. Police and staff of the local municipal public order offices have enforced penalties, resulting in about 60.000 fines since the launch of the LEZ.
LP: How are you engaging the public?
Martin Lutz: An extensive information campaign was launched after the adoption of the scheme, with flyers, newspaper articles and advertisements in TV and radio.
LP: Are there penalties for infringement?
Martin Lutz: Driving within the zone without a sticker or with a non-compliant vehicle is penalised with 40€ and with one point in the national road penalty register.
LP:: Finally...What is the cost of monitoring the program in Berlin?
Berlin's spends a lot of effort in monitoring air quality in the city, with a network of 16 automatic stations, which continuously record the pollution concentration within the city area. Extra monitoring of black carbon and nitrogen oxide is being done at additional 20 kerbside spots. In addition with dispersion models and traffic detectors a good data base is available to assess the impact of the LEZ and other measures on the air quality. The costs of these extra monitoring and assessment activities alone are well above 100.000 € per year.
Originally published in Portuguese : http://mobilidadesustentavel.blog.uol.com.br/
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About the authors:
Lincoln Paiva is director of Green Mobility 
Brazil. How to ensure people’s transportation and at the same time be sustainable? The Green Mobility Project arose from the need to develop a culture concerned with managing the demand for mobility in a sustainable manner in order to reduce the use of individual transportation, responsible for 70% of the occupation of the earth and for the problems arising from this option such as pollution and investments in modal infrastructure, as well as to discuss alternative, more sustainable means for cities.
Martin Lutz has a university degree in meteorology and air chemistry. More than 2 decades ago he started dealing with 
winter smog alarm management in Berlin. During a four year detachment to the EU Commission he was drafting an European ozone strategy and a new ozone Directive. Back in Berlin he led investigations in the sources of PM10 pollution and an impact analysis of control measures on PM10 and NO2 pollution. He was developing Berlin’s air quality strategy. Mr. Lutz is now head of the sector on air pollution. FOr more on the LEZ project: http://www.life-spas.at/deutsch/includes/12_Lutz-LEZ-Sep09-EN-sent%281%29.pdf
For more information on Low Emission Zones in Europe: http://www.lowemissionzones.eu/
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Brazilians observe how Germans are creating Low Emission Zones in cities
Friday, May 14, 2010
No Accident!
Traffic and Pedestrians in the Modern City
As most of our regular readers are well aware, World Streets is no friend of speed in cities. To the contrary, it is our firm position that a considerable number of the basic objectives associated with sustainable mobility and sustainable cities can be 
achieved if we do no more than to reduce top speeds in and around our cities in a strategic and carefully thought-out way. The great technological virtuosity of traffic engineers and technical planners permit us to do this, while at the same time retaining a well working transportation system, a healthier city, and a viable local economy. Listen to what John Rennie Short and Luis Mauricio Pinet-Peralta have to tell us on the subject.
Authors: John Rennie Short and Luis Mauricio Pinet-Peralta. Department of Public Policy, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Abstract
This paper considers the rise of traffic accidents in the creation of the modern city. The notion of accidents is deconstructed. There is a brief review of current literature on mobilities and then evidence is presented of the shifting configuration of vehicle-pedestrian accidents. The epidemic of traffic accidents of cities in developing world is noted and explained. The incidence of pedestrian traffic accidents is shown to reflect socio-economic characteristics such as age, class and status. A review of the literature provides evidence of the ways to ameliorate pedestrian injuries. Walksheds are suggested as a focus of concern. The creation of a more pedestrian-friendly city is proposed.
The Modern City
At the heart of modernity is the connection between speed, the machine and the city. In his 1909 manifesto of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) glorified the man at the wheel and the beauty of speed. He associated speed with courage in action and slowness with stagnant prudence. His glorification of the speeding automobile in the city prefigures its subsequent centrality to urban development.
Cities were reimagined and then reengineered to promote high speed. Virilo (1986; 1995; 2005) tells a story of the destruction of the sociability of the city by the logic of acceleration. In a more nuanced interpretation, Latham and McCormack (2008) explore the ways in which the speed and the 'countervailing eddies of slowness' define the experience of the city. However, in terms of urban traffic and the marginalization and displacement of the self-propelled human body, Virilio's image of the city as a site of acceleration seems closer to the mark. In this paper, we will explore one of the little discussed consequences of this transformation, the risk of bodily accidents in what are described as 'traffic accidents'.
The modern city is designed largely around the use of motor vehicles despite the inherent risks in machine-body coexistence, part of the brisk pace of city life. Indeed, in the immediate prehistory of automotive ascendancy, the Futurists downplayed any risks and celebrated machine-body meshing as a means to a high-speed, dynamic superhumanity.
Such eventual transformation was made possible, according to the Futurism's founding myth, when poet Filippo Marinetti emerged from a ditch after crashing his beloved Fiat, spewing mud and apparently, the Manifesto of Futurism, which begins 'We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness' and famously continues 'We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace' (Flint, 1972, p. 41).
By the early 1930s, Le Corbusier further enshrined swift automobility, proposing his 'autostrades' as concrete ribbons threading skyscrapers' canopies, elevated above mere city streets and devoid of pedestrians for optimum vehicular velocity. Speed and the fantasy of infinite mobility were at the heart of modernism and its physical embodiment in urban modernity. Norton (2008), for example, tells the story of American cities; at the beginning of the twentieth century, city streets had a variety of users, people as well as cars, and multiple users, a place for children playing, people walking, neighbors chatting. 
From the 1900s to the early 1930s, a battle was fought between, on the one hand, the multiple users and interests decrying the onslaught of cars on streets and the growing dominance of auto traffic, the term 'death cars' was frequently used, and on the other hand, automotive interests which continually invoked freedom as a rallying cry. The automotive interests won. From our perspective today it seems a foregone conclusion but the 25-year period in the early twentieth century reminds us of the battle for alternative conceptions of the primary purpose of city streets.
This urban restructuring of the city streets as pathways for automobiles with pedestrians shunted to the sidewalks has a high human cost. High-speed machines mangle bodies and kill pedestrians and yet these costs are largely absent from urban studies and discussions of urban safety.
A recent book with the title The Safe City (Berg et al., 2006) makes for interesting reading, as much for what it does not include as for what it does include. While issues of terrorism and crime abound in the book, one issue receives scant attention despite the book's title, which is the risk of bodily injury and fatality from traffic accidents. Such neglect is not uncommon in the recent urban literature where terrorist campaigns and crime waves dominate safety issues, yet there is a huge silence on the issue of traffic safety and especially pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
There have been a number of commentators who have drawn attention to the issue of traffic and pedestrian safety (Hass-Klau, 1990), numerous empirical studies (e.g., Chapman et al., 1982; Graham & Glaister, 2003) as well as the continuing concern of such commentators as Mayer Hillman (Hillman, 1993; Karpf, 2002). However, the issue has failed to gain traction in the wider and broader urban studies literature. And yet the issue is of some importance.
Across the world almost over 10 million people are crippled or injured each year, and approximately 1.2 million people are killed every year due to road accidents, approximately 3,250 people every day, (Peden et al. 2004). That is the equivalent of a World Trade Center disaster on the world's roads each and every day. One writer even refers to a global epidemic of road deaths (Dahl, 2004). The total economic cost is estimated at 1 percent of the GNP of low-income countries and 2 percent in high-income countries (Jacobs et al., 2000).
No Accident
Even the quickest review of recent and classic urban texts reveals little consideration of this issue. Why the silence? Two reasons stand out. First, there is the notion of the accidental, of random events that are to be endured rather than explained.
The term 'accident' is revealing; it initially meant an event, anything that happens. Now the word commonly refers to an unforeseen event, a mishap. But the predictable covariance of road deaths with social phenomena belies this connotation of 'accident'. The young and the vulnerable and the poor and the marginal are more likely to be hit by a car than the rich and the powerful. While road deaths have declined among rich countries, they have increased among poor countries.
These statistics suggest an ordered causation rather than random occurrences. Road traffic accidents are not mishaps but events that are both explainable and preventable. The relative silence shrouding this serious issue is itself a political act. The incidence of pedestrian fatalities and injuries is skewed toward the more marginal and vulnerable members of society. Yet this consistent finding has failed to capture the attention of most critical theorists.
Most pedestrian fatalities occur in poor countries and have greater impact on the poor, the young and the old. Pedestrian injuries are just one strand in webs of multiple deprivations that bind people in disadvantaged positions. To see traffic fatalities and injuries through the lens of marginalization theory is to offer a very different perspective on them as accidents (see Cutler & Malone, 2005).
Second, there is the silence accorded to all events that have a constant background quality. The fact that road traffic accidents happen all the time makes them blend into the fabric of the taken for granted.
Too regular to generate much notice, they become mere white noise rather than events to be analyzed. Their very consistency and regularity allows them to fade into an unexamined, rarely discussed space. The urban spectaculars such as the collapse of the World Trade Center, overwhelms and ultimately silences the murderous regularity of road traffic fatalities and injuries.
Road traffic 'accidents' are taken for granted cost of contemporary urban living, a seeming inevitability that allows attention to be drawn to the more unusual, rare events; they are just too mundane, too anonymous, too ordinary to generate much interest. However, the rising concern with the everyday ordinary nature of the lived urban experience should prompt a reconsideration of road safety and risk.
The 'ordinary' quality assigned to road traffic accidents is, if you excuse the unintended pun, no accident: there is also a vast array of interests concerned with making them ordinary. These interests include the motor vehicle manufacturers, road builders, construction companies as well as a society that does not want to question the fatal costs of a culture and cities dominated by fast moving vehicles. The current usage of the term 'accidents' to refer to fatal and damaging machine-body interactions in the city is incorrect, misleading and deceptive in shifting the phenomenon from social outcome to random event.
Perrow (1999) introduced the notion of 'normal accidents' that may be unforeseeable yet are inevitable. Perrow based his initial work on the near meltdown of Three Mile Island. Drawing a wider perspective on high-risk technologies, he argues that accidents occur when systems become more complex and interconnected. These conditions are increasingly met in cities where traffic patterns are more complex and a variety of users share busier roads. The ubiquitous nature of motorized transport in many cities, in comparison to the obvious singularity of nuclear power station renders it, in the minds of many, as safe or relatively innocuous.
Yet a heavy piece of metal - the average weight of a US car in 2006 was 4142 lbs. (1878 kg) - traveling at even 30 miles per hour, operated by someone, perhaps listening to the radio, drinking coffee or using his cell phone, times the thousands of other drivers on a road in the average city constitutes a complex technological system with lots of room for human error. The result is a relatively high risk of being involved in a car crash. Our need for urban vehicular traffic has in part blinded us to its inherent and inevitable risks to health and safety. Popular perceptions of risks, in general and in relation to traffic accident risk in particular, are based more on intuition and judgment, rather than objective assessments (Slovic, 2002).
In this paper, after reviewing some mobilities literature and presenting some general background data, we will concentrate on pedestrian injuries, because they are marginalized by recent urban safety scholarship: there is no rush to publish or comment on everyday traffic accidents involving pedestrians as there is to pontificate in the wake of 9/11. Then we will review a range of recent papers that explore the causal connections between urban design and traffic 'accidents'. We will introduce the notion of 'walkshed' as a unit of analysis and conclude with intimations of more progressive changes.
The paper is part review and part an attempt to right the balance in discussions of urban traffic. As the more affluent move around by car and limousine, the pedestrian becomes the minor player in transport discussions, and as cities are restructured to fit the needs of the car, the needs of the pedestrian are even less considered. But even the car driver has to step out of the car at times.
While not everyone drives a car, most of us are pedestrians at some time. However, as soon you step out of your car in many if not most cities, you become a second-class citizen: it is as if your full rights only exist when you drive a car.
Walk in the city, and you are pushed to the sides of the road, a telling phrase and metaphor. When a car hits a child it is often treated as an accident, when a child hits a car it is considered vandalism. When Short (1989) writes in The Humane City of cities designed as if only some people matter, he references specifically car drivers in contrast with pedestrians. Cities are biased toward the needs of the drivers rather than the rights of the pedestrians, despite the obvious inequality. A heavy metal object traveling at even relatively low speeds does more damage to a human body than the body does to the car. People get killed and maimed; cars merely get scratched and dented.. . . (Body of paper follows here. We jump for now to the authors' conclusions. See below for links to full article.) . . .
Conclusion
Across the globe there is an epidemic of traffic injuries and fatalities that is particularly marked in low- and middle-income countries. Almost 90 percent of traffic fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries. The most vulnerable are pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. The poor, the young and the old are at especially high risk.
Injury control and prevention strategies as part of a broader and deeper reorientation of cities away from a car-dominated culture toward a vehicle-pedestrian sharing culture can have significant impacts on morbidity, mortality, risk of injury and population health. These strategies include:
* Limiting and controlling speed through active and passive measures that target drivers' decisions on how fast to drive and road conditions that indirectly force drivers to reduce their average speeds;
* Organizing traffic away from residential areas, limiting inner city and business area traffic flow, and encouraging alternative modes of transportation that focus more on health benefits and non-motorized road users;
* Continuing public information programs targeting high-risk groups and vulnerable urban populations;
* Integrating urban planning and development and public health to design built environments that promote healthier lifestyles rather than safer behaviors.
Pedestrian injuries are not accidents. They are preventable. If the vulnerability of the human body was the determining factor, then it is unlikely we would design our transport system the way we have.
'Accidents' reflect and reinforce social differences: they are less accidents and more manifestations of wider and deeper inequalities in society that reflect the relative power of a vehicle-dominated as opposed to a pedestrian-dominated culture.
We need an anti-Marinetti to write a program for the future in which the city reflects the needs of the pedestrians and the frailties of the human body rather than the needs of the drivers and the power of their vehicles. It is perhaps fitting then that the same country that produced Mainetti is also home to the CittaSlow movement.
# # #
For the full text, referencess and graphics of this thought-provoking twenty page paper, please click here to : http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a917906422&fulltext=713240928Contents:
# # #
- The Modern City
- No Accident
- A Wider Context
- Urban Design and Road Safety
- The City as Urban Walkshed
- Conclusion
- References
- List of Tables
Source: The full text of this article was published in: the journal Mobilities, Volume 5, Issue 1 February 2010 , pages 41 - 59. It is reprinted here with the kind permision of the authors.
The authors: 
John Rennie Short is an expert on urban issues, environmental concerns, globalization, political geography and the history of cartography. He has studied cities around the world, and lectured around the world to a variety of audiences. He is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland (UMBC). He can be contacted via jrs@umbc.edu.
Luis Mauricio Pinet Peralta holds a Ph.D in Public Policy, Health Specialty, with a background in Emergency Health Services, Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine. He is a Research Associate of the Department of Public Policy, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD. He can be contacted via lpinet1@umbc.edu.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Honk! Complex thinking on reducing traffic signals in cities
What is that old saw that goes something like "the definition of high intelligence is the ability to keep two contradictory ideas in mind at the same time without ones head exploding?" Well, whatever the exact wording there is no doubt that this is an imperative capability for making wise policy in terms of our transportation arrangements. Here is an exchange taken from several leading newmobility discussion fora, which offers some complex views on the advantages of removing at least some, possibly many, traffic lights from our cities. Maybe.
This exchange took place on the several indicated discussion fora.
Mayor identifies 140 traffic signals for removal
Source: http://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=21956
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of Eric Britton
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 4:09 PM
To: NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com; Sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org; WorldStreets@yahoogroups.com;
Subject: London Mayor identifies 140 traffic signals for removal
Transport for London has identified 140 traffic signals across the capital that may no longer perform a useful role and could be removed.
Officials are finalising the collection of data on traffic flows and accidents from each site to verify that the signals are no longer useful in traffic, pedestrian or safety terms.
David Brown, TfL's managing director for surface transport, told last week's meeting of the TfL board that 28 sets of traffic signals had already been removed in the capital this financial year, ten of which were on TfL's road network.
Board members also received an update on the proposed trial of pedestrian 'countdown' signals. TfL submitted plans to the DfT at the beginning of March to trial the technology at eight locations in the capital. If approval is granted the first trial site could be installed as early as June.
Countdown signals will show pedestrians how many seconds are left in the 'blackout' period - the phase between the green man being extinguished and road traffic receiving a green light.
Brown also provided the board with details of TfL's lane rental plans under which utility companies would have to pay a charge for the time they occupy the road when conducting streetworks.
Brown said utility companies could avoid paying the charge if they undertook work at non-traffic sensitive times or employed "innovative working practices" so that the carriageway was returned to traffic use at peak times.
Brown said TfL's plans would need amendments to existing legislation. Lane rental powers were included in the New Roads and Streetworks Act but have only ever been trialled, in Camden and Middlesbrough.
Transport minister Sadiq Khan said in December that the DfT would consult on lane rental this summer and that regulations could be introduced in October 2011. They would only be available for use on the "most sensitive roads in the most congested urban areas".
(Thanks to Ian Perry for the heads-up)
-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Bishop, Delhi
Sent: Monday, 05 April, 2010 08:01
To: Eric Britton
Subject: RE: [sustran] London Mayor identifies 140 traffic signals for removal
Dear Madhav, Paul, and Everyone,
This raises an interesting issue Eric. Here in Delhi you may be aware that there are a comparatively very small number of signals, 700 whereas London has around 6,500 for a similar land area and lower population density.
In some senses then you have 'naked streets' in Delhi. However, on most roads in the city this is an unenviable state of affairs. The rising motorized middle class neither want to see more signals hindering their path and are pushing for 'signal free' stretches where they can drive non-stop and unhindered. The results are there to be found in the road casualty statistics.
In this scenario I find myself arguing for the implementation of many more signals in Delhi precisely because the 'roads' are designed to facilitate car movement (ironically like many of the 'roads' in London too). There is also an 'imperialistic' attitude towards vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists, ignored most of the time and hooted at when they get in the way. So called zebras are worth less than the paint they use to make them with.
A combination of these reasons leads me to think that it is very well to have naked streets when a) you clearly have a 'street' and not a 'road' (many of the 'colonies' or residential areas here in Delhi would come under this category and could work as such with minor traffic calming measures, and b) equally importantly, you have a sufficiently 'democratic' approach to the use of road space and a respect for vulnerable modes. It is questionable that both exist in Delhi or London.
I'm a bit out of touch with London but I understand that Boris also wants to remove signals because they are a hindrance to motorized vehicles. If this is the case then I'm afraid I'm not in favor of the concept. The UK has a long way to go to reach the attitudes of Dutch drivers when it comes to sharing the road - one of the main reasons because cycling is still an activity of health freaks and eccentrics (so you're not mowing down a friend or family member if you drive fast).
In the UK there has to be a change in mindset and an effort to remove all of the risk averse, health and safety regulatory culture which leads local authorities to make roads out of streets if naked streets are to work. At the same time, we have to start somewhere and attitudes will change when our urban environment becomes more friendly to vulnerable users, so let's get the ball rolling.
In London removing signals could be started on quieter streets with appropriately designed traffic calming measures. Delhi could leapfrog London by going straight ahead for traffic calming on streets. But in London and Delhi signals are still needed on main roads designed for traffic movement.
I have an idea, Boris can give the signals he's removing to Delhi to put on their roads..... Who could facilitate this I wonder?
# # #
Friday, March 19, 2010
Message from Mumbai: Streets are for People
This post is intended as a follow-up to Erica Schlaikjer’s recent post about the new “skywalks” in Mumbai. She highlighted several common criticisms – that these elevated walkways are inaccessible for the old and the disabled, that they destroy the vibrancy of streets and that they are poor alternatives to solving the real problem: the automobile. She also suggests, though, that skywalks might bring “welcome change” for cities like Mumbai, where pedestrians walk in extremely unsafe conditions. It becomes clear from a cursory study, however, that Mumbai planners do not necessarily view skywalks as a solution for improved safety, but rather, increased pedestrian flow. The idea is to move pedestrians up and away, making room for everyone else down below, including motorists and illegal street vendors who encroach on footpaths. But to pit walkers against hawkers is to ignore the real problem. A real solution would preserve the vibrancy of Mumbai’s street-level marketplaces. Most importantly, it would be about getting pedestrians to their destinations, not about getting pedestrians off the roads so that motorists have a free pass. Hawkers Welcome A Wall Street Journal slideshow shows pictures of what’s squeezing sidewalks around western neighbourhoods in Mumbai. It has pictures of phone booths and cobbler stalls, and vendors selling coconuts, sugarcane juice and vegetables. The message is clear: street vendors refuse to budge, so the city planners are being forced to make extra space for pedestrians to move. When the problem is formulated that way, the proposed solution – an elevated walkway – seems to be the obvious solution. Indeed, this seems to be the logic behind the decision to build them. “We clear [the street vendors] and they just come back,” an MMRDA official is quoted as saying. “That’s why we thought, ‘Let’s create some additional space on the road by going elevated.’ ” It is of course true that encroachment reduces the space available for pedestrians. Debris and electrical equipment and advertisement boards placed in the middle of the sidewalk are especially dangerous (as this good professor found out — he fell on the pavement and broke six ribs while trying to step around a billboard.) But not everything that disrupts pedestrian flow is bad. Trees, for example, take up a great deal of space on already narrow footpaths. But they also provide shade, without which it is impossible to walk in the summer. Street vendors also offer crucial services to pedestrians. I have walked all my life in Indian cities, and the luxury of knowing that I can find a vendor selling something to eat or drink every hundred meters is much more important to me than having a perfectly designed footpath with no encroachments. Several commentators have stressed on this point. William Whyte – the famous chronicler of pedestrian behavior in New York – speaks of pedestrians in Tokyo being drawn to vendors even when the entire street has been opened up for walkers. Streets with shoeshine people, for example, are some of the most preferable busiest spaces. Elsewhere, Dr. Geetam Tiwari, associate professor of transport planning at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, argues that “pedestrians need cobblers on the road to have their footwear fixed, just as much as car owners need tyre repair shops… All commuters need cold drinks, snacks and other services on the roadside. These services have to exist at frequent intervals, otherwise walking or bicycling would become impossible, especially in summer.” These principles are valid internationally, but they are especially applicable to India. It is also important to note that the skywalks cannot take the pedestrians everywhere. In most cases, the skywalks will serve only a fraction of the pedestrians. In West Mulund, for example, the proposed skywalk provided no connectivity to the northern portions of the locality. It was fiercely opposed by people whose livelihood depends on the vitality of neighbourhood markets and people who have little hope of improved access due to the skywalk, and eventually, the MMRDA had to cancel the project. What About Safety? In my experience, walking is not very dangerous when you are walking along the road, even if a footpath is absent. Especially in Mumbai, pedestrians have safety in numbers (watch this video of people heading into Dadar Station during rush hour — organized chaos.) Things get really risky only when pedestrians have to cross busy roads, in other words, when they have to interact with motorists. And even with a skywalk, most users will have to walk the last quarter-mile on the roads, in the midst of motorists. So the solution, then, must address the problems of pedestrians at-grade, where men returning from work can eat a vada-pav before going home for dinner, where working women can buy vegetables and look longingly at the latest fashions in sarees, and where kids can guiltily eat ice-cream. While hawkers need to be regulated, they must also be recognized as essential to Mumbai’s street-life. Views from the Street Photo by Arun Shanbhag. Photo by Sayali Santosh Kadam Photo by Kunal Bhatia. The Proposal Let’s take Mulund West as an example of a proposed skywalk project. It is a classic case of a solution being misapplied. Mulund is a largely residential suburb where the railway station is surrounded by a thriving market area. The traders were against the skywalk because they feared that it would reduce their sales. The map below shows the area served by the railway station (in brown), the market area (in red), and the proposed skywalk (in blue). Clearly, the skywalk would serve only a small portion of the community. West Mulund, Mumbai, India. Image via Google. Alternate Solution If I had to make an alternative plan for this area, I would make the market area a non-motorised zone and reserve the main approach road to the station for public transport and para-transit. I propose that during rush hour, four arterial roads from the station (shown in blue) be redesigned to allow only non-motorized vehicles, buses and auto-rickshaws (three-wheeler taxis), and four cross-streets (shown in green) be preserved for non-motorized use only. These steps would have to be complemented with improvements in outer streets, including the redesign of the footpaths, restrictions for on-street parking, and the construction of off-street parking facilities. Why would such a plan work? First, we know from experience that pedestrian-friendly streets are great for commerce. Second, it provides more opportunities for improved BRT and auto-rickshaw services for the more distant areas served by the Mulund railway station. Lastly, the most harrowing part of the daily walk suddenly becomes a lot safer and a lot more fun. For the majority of commuters in Mulund who either walk or use public transport, this would be a strong improvement. MMRDA has been proposing a single solution – a skywalk – for fifty different localities in the Mumbai metropolitan region. But even if some areas do need skywalks, other areas might have different needs. The needs of people in Andheri/Mulund are obviously different from the needs of people in Bandra. Instead of choosing a solution first and then scouting around the city for problems to solve, the planners should study the problem first and then find the best solution. Then, perhaps the “caterpillars” (as the skywalks are called) won’t have to crawl in the sky. Instead, they would be on the earth, where they belong.
When we set out to lay the base for this journal in 2008, we never for a moment considered calling it "World Roads". Our focus was and is on the fact that if roads are for vehicles, streets are definitely for people. Let us have a look at what one young "lapsed engineer from India" has to say about this in the context of his home city of Mumbai, with lessons that ring just as true in places like Manhattan, Madrid, Melbourne . . . or surely your city as well. Creating Streets for Walkers and Hawkers
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Credit: This article originally appered in The City Fix Mumbia on 10 February at http://mumbai.thecityfix.com/creating-streets-for-walkers-and-hawkers/. Kind thanks to the author and the editor for sharing.
About the author:
I'm a lapsed engineer from India who found that making cars was not as much fun as 
getting rid of them. This discovery brought me to Rutgers University, where I am currently doing my masters in City and Regional Planning and assisting Voorhees Transporation Center in its research.I spend my free time listening to Indian Classical Music, playing bridge or reading one of Jane Austen's novels for the millionth time.
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