Citation

James A. World Transp. Policy Pract. 1995; 1(3): 5-11.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Eco-Logica)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The city street plays a vital role in the quality of urban life. In the present age, the trends of society are towards what Sir Richard Rogers recently highlighted as "single- minded space" (BBC 1995 Reith Lectures), in which most places have a single predominant purpose in the name of efficient living. The street is one of the last bastions of "open-minded space" in which a multiplicity of functions and behavioural patterns interact. The significance of this is that single-minded space invariably acts as an agent of sterility and anonymity; whereas it is open- minded space which shapes the qualities of place - character, diversity, identity, community, vitality - on which the quality of urban life depends.
Over the past few decades the open-mindedness of the street has been increasingly threatened by the dominance of one user - the motor vehicle - and its environmental consequences - noise, danger, pollution, overcrowding, pedestrian severance. Pedestrianization and traffic calming are widely seen as policies which redress the balance and, therefore, "a good thing". They are all about returning the streets to people, eliminating or reducing the adverse effects of traffic, lessening the tensions between street users with very different demands and capabilities. They are about using the space to meet more vital and human needs and aspirations such as those for trees, seats, fountains, art, information and meeting places. They constitute, in planning and urban-design terms, a "success story".