Archive for July 28th, 2009

I’ve been looking at some before-and-after photos of the “shared space” scheme in the English town of Ashford, which we’ve written about here before.

The first pair below shows West Street before the scheme, a rather drab slab of pavement and railings, forbidden to pedestrian crossing, with all the charm of a drainage ditch.

The image below is of the after, and I had to check the nearby buildings to make sure it really was the same vista.

The next set shows Elwick Road, which is virtually crying out for a speed problem.

And the after, with trees and sculpture by Simeon Nelson…

The changes have of course not been without controversy, similar to some recent schemes in London, as the columnist Simon Jenkins notes. He writes, about Ashford:

If they cannot afford a trip to the Netherlands or Germany, they should visit Ashford in Kent. Here the local council, in collaboration with the designer Ben Hamilton-Baillie, took a leaf from the work of the Dutchman, Hans Monderman, and turned their town into the most progressive in England.

Astonishing as it may seem to the enemies of progress, the accident injury rate in Ashford has fallen to zero. Even the far more modest scheme in Kensington High Street has led to a 44 per cent cut in accidents.

Hardly the mass carnage predicted by Jeremy Clarkson…

Just to let everyone know that in a mere few weeks, the paperback edition of Traffic will be published, by Vintage. But you can grab it for the time being for a sawbuck and some change from Amazon.com.

Another follow-up on the Slate roundabouts piece; reader Alan sends along this time-lapse video of a Canadian roundabout. I find it strangely soothing (perhaps pair this with some Brian Eno), though I wonder if the main trunk of traffic is entering a bit too fast due to some gentle curve radii.

Via the Forward comes news of violent clashes in Jerusalem over contested ground — only this time it’s parking.

In the months of June and July, there have been mass protests, turning violent at times, against the decision of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to open parking facilities just outside the Old City on the Sabbath…

“It was a pain. People parked and double-parked all over,” said Mark Feldman, CEO of Ziontours Jerusalem, a large travel agency.

The mayor responded by opening a new parking lot, outside the Old City, which hardly quieted those aggrieved.

Despite the continued protests, Barkat considers the issue closed. “The mayor found a real solution to a real problem and has now returned to tackling the economy and education,” his spokesman, Stephan Miller, told the Forward.

But experts believe that the conflict will continue. “It’s a question about who runs the city — it’s a power struggle in the city,” said Noam Shoval, a geographer at the Hebrew University.

Isn’t it always?