{"id":10850,"date":"2010-08-11T23:14:15","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T06:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10850"},"modified":"2010-08-11T23:14:15","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T06:14:15","slug":"smash-all-the-traffic-lights-burn-the-stop-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10850","title":{"rendered":"Smash All The Traffic Lights! Burn The Stop Signs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Would we be better off if many intersections were redesigned, to get rid of most of the traffic signs and the traffic lights? Many traffic engineers think so, following in the example of the late Hans Monderman. From The Wilson Quarterly<\/a>:<\/p>\n

And Monderman certainly changed the landscape in the provincial city of Drachten, with the project that, in 2001, made his name. At the town center, in a crowded four-way intersection called the Laweiplein, Monderman removed not only the traffic lights but virtually every other traffic control. Instead of a space cluttered with poles, lights, \u201ctraffic islands,\u201d and restrictive arrows, Monderman installed a radical kind of roundabout (a \u201csquareabout,\u201d in his words, because it really seemed more a town square than a traditional roundabout), marked only by a raised circle of grass in the middle, several fountains, and some very discreet indicators of the direction of traffic, which were required by law.<\/p>\n

As I watched the intricate social ballet that occurred as cars and bikes slowed to enter the circle (pedestrians were meant to cross at crosswalks placed a bit before the intersection), Monderman performed a favorite trick. He walked, backward and with eyes closed, into the Laweiplein. The traffic made its way around him. No one honked, he wasn\u2019t struck. Instead of a binary, mechanistic process\u2014stop, go\u2014the movement of traffic and pedestrians in the circle felt human and organic.<\/p>\n

A year after the change, the results of this \u201cextreme makeover\u201d were striking: Not only had congestion decreased in the intersection\u2014buses spent less time waiting to get through, for example\u2014but there were half as many accidents, even though total car traffic was up by a third. Students from a local engineering college who studied the intersection reported that both drivers and, unusually, cyclists were using signals\u2014of the electronic or hand variety\u2014more often. They also found, in surveys, that residents, despite the measurable increase in safety, perceived the place to be more dangerous. This was music to Monderman\u2019s ears. If they had not felt less secure, he said, he \u201cwould have changed it immediately.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that what Monderman advocated wasn’t simple anti-government libertarianism; despite the title of this post, it’s not just smashing the traffic lights. It’s using the tools of government to create a context in which drivers and others are cautious:<\/p>\n

Monderman suggested to the villagers, who as it happens had hired a consultant to help improve the town\u2019s aesthetics, that Oudehaske simply be made to seem more \u201cvillagelike.\u201d The interventions were subtle. Signs were removed, curbs torn out, and the asphalt replaced with red paving brick, with two gray \u201cgutters\u201d on either side that were slightly curved but usable by cars. As Monderman noted, the road looked only five meters wide, \u201cbut had all the possibilities of six.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results were striking. Without bumps or flashing warning signs, drivers slowed, so much so that Monderman\u2019s radar gun couldn\u2019t even register their speeds. Rather than clarity and segregation, he had created confusion and ambiguity. Unsure of what space belonged to them, drivers became more accommodating. Rather than give drivers a simple behavioral mandate\u2014say, a speed limit sign or a speed bump\u2014he had, through the new road design, subtly suggested the proper course of action. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, it seems that some intersections are improved by doing nothing more than turning the traffic lights off:<\/p>\n

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Would we be better off if many intersections were redesigned, to get rid of most of the traffic signs and the traffic lights? Many traffic engineers think so, following in the example of the late Hans Monderman. From The Wilson … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-mind-blowing-miscellania-and-other-neat-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}