Shared Streets: Feasible or Farfetched?

Boston is well-known as a walkable city, but that does it mean it's a safe and walkable city? In an excellent feature article on the relationship between drivers and pedestrians, the Globe calls us "a city where walking is the most dangerous form of transportation (over the last five years, the number of pedestrians killed by cars was double that of drivers and passengers killed in car accidents)."

Boston could benefit from Shared Space, a movement based on the idea that drivers and pedestrians can better (and more safely) share space by eliminating divisions between the two. Tenets include the idea that we need fewer, not more, signals to manage traffic, and that signals should be more pedestrian-oriented instead of car-oriented. Proposed aids for Boston include raised crosswalks that also function as speed bumps for cars, crosswalks that count down the time until you can walk (while most folks will wait only 30 seconds before jaywalking, many intersections in Boston feature 90- to 100-second waits), and a "head start" system that lets pedestrians start crossing before cars get to go (that's to improve visibility, not hit-ability, GTA fans).

Jeff Rosenblum, a Cambridge transportation planner and founder of LivableStreets Alliance, is quoted as saying "Push buttons are stupid, because cars don't have to push a button." Nope--they just have to wait, because streets are designed with them in mind--not pedestrians. In general, we think that roads will fill with what you build them for, whether that's traffic, bikes, or people. Got big roads with high speed limits and no bike lanes or sidewalks? Cars will thrive. Smaller roads with low speed limits, bike lanes, and wide sidewalks? Cars, bikes, and pedestrians can travel in (relative) harmony. It take the right kind of planning to produce the right kind of results. Ultimately, the Globe article says, "the best way to balance the system is to consider how many people you move, not how many vehicles." Hear, hear.

Photo by hypertypos used under a Creative Commons license