CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for January 27th, 2010

Abu Dhabi Street Design Manual

Writing that “previous design guidance was influenced by documents such as the AASHTO Green Book, which is inappropriate for urban streets where modes of transport other than the automobile are present,” Nelson/Nygaard has made available its Abu Dhabi Street Design Manual, which provides guidance to “design streets that create a safe environment for all users; transition from a vehicle-trip based society to a multimodal society; introduce fine-grained street networks into the existing super-block pattern.”

It is, they suggest, “perhaps one of the most progressive in the world.”

Judge for yourself here.

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Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 10:10 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
9 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Hamilton-Baillie on ‘Shared Space’ in Ashford

Photo by Pat Linsley/Flickr

The town of Ashford in the U.K. was one of the highest profile experiments in ’shared space’ when it launched over a year ago. The changes, meant to reconnect the center (severed by a hostile ring road) and make the town feel more ‘town-like,’ were quite radical — removing signals, blurring formal notation of right of way — as well as drawn from more traditional traffic-calming approaches (special pavement treatments). The reaction ranged from skeptical to hostile (Jeremy Clarkson, whose opinion on anything but the braking ability of an E-Class Mercedes should be heeded with a yellow flag, predicted ‘millions’ would die).

Ben Hamilton-Baillie, one of the leads on the project (he appears in Traffic), has sent along a Q&A he did with a local paper on the status of the project after one year. Though such things need continual monitoring, the early prognosis is positive and a sign that fresh thinking in terms of the built environment and accommodating traffic can bring good results.

You can read what Ben had to say after the jump. (more…)

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Posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 8:21 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
3 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.
Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

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U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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