Shared space–Drachten

[david j bockman]

Although this video has been out for awhile, I still find this concept thrilling and perfectly viable– I wish more planners would embrace this concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21uZ0eQA35c

edit: how does one embed video here? can’t figure it out although I’ve seen it done!

[Trace One]

This traffic pattern seems very low volume..I like the water – can we use jets like that to control traffic? Pretty thought..but, David, I am just tired of the car everywhere..I have seen this video, and have gotten in this argument before..I like this because it requires humans to think..But it is just too zero-sum for us bicyclists and pedestrians, when we are on the street with cars..I want our society to work towards no-car spaces, dedicated bike streets (elevated bike highways) and dedicated pedestrian streets.
Extreme and idealistic (or just stupid?) but I have lost too much to cars, as has our entire society..and the earth..

[david j bockman]

Thanks for your thoughts, Trace One, I’ll have more to say a bit later but I wanted to point out the gentleman being interviewed indicated a vehicular traffic volume of around 22,000 per day, plus bikes and pedestrians. To me that does not seem like low volume but I’m no expert!

[Roland Beinert]

I will try to limit myself to just saying this:This is one part of a system that makes many European cities much safer than American cities for bicyclists and pedestrians. They have pedestrian- and bicycle-only areas, too, in European cities like Drachten. I’m all for using this sort of thing here in the US. But the whole system needs to be planned out rather than just adding something like this in random spots where citizens have complained about traffic problems, which seems to be what happens a lot in the US.

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