Shared Space - Coming Our Way

A post today by Martin Jones alerts us to the fact that the Shared Space concept may soon be introduced to some Bristol streets. Park Street and the Clifton Triangle are specifically mentioned. I've blogged about Shared Use before, expressing reservations about the willingness of British motorists to accept the concept.



So what exactly is Shared Space? The principle is quite simple and appealing. All road users share the same space on the street on equal terms and with no priority given to one direction of travel over another (although the drive-on-the-left convention would continue to apply) or to vehicles over pedestrians. So no pavement / road distinction, no traffic signals or give way markings at junctions and no specific pedestrian crossings (since pedestrians can freely cross anywhere, almost as if the whole street were a zebra crossing).

Of course such sharing is only possible at very low speeds, perhaps around 10 mph, and with limited vehicular traffic volumes, especially through traffic. We already have examples in the form of Home Zones, based on the Dutch Woonerf principle, but these have little if any through traffic so cannot be taken as models for how the concept might work on busy streets like Park Street. The forecourt of Temple Meads station is cited as an example of shared space, but it still has separate pavements and of course no through traffic since all vehicles using that space are accessing the station.


Ashford before....

There are some examples in the UK, notable Ashford in Kent where the former ring road has been downgraded to what is claimed to be Shared Space and the results certainly look attractive in still pictures compared to what went before, as described in this post by Tom Vandebilt and as shown above (before) and below (after) here. However it's clear that this isn't pure Shared Space but retains some segregation and priority, notably keeping separate pavement and road (technically footway and carriageway).


.....Ashford after.

I expect that what we might get in Bristol will also be some kind of hybrid, or bastard child perhaps. Neither one thing nor the other, rather like what was done in the Centre ten years ago. Therein lies a danger. We may end up with something which confuses the existing conventions without giving clear guidance as to what replaces them. The Centre has been a road safety disaster with 6 pedestrian deaths in a few years at just a couple of crossing points for precisely that reason.

There is very little practical experience of Shared Space in the UK and virtually none in Bristol, so it is easy to think that Shared Space will be some sort of panacea. But experience elsewhere suggests that results will be mixed at best. Recorded injury accidents may fall but what about low level harassment and intimidation which is not recorded or even acknowledged by the authorities? Such conflict could even become worse as measures that give some priority or protection to pedestrians and cyclists are removed.

I've no doubt that we need to change the conventions of how streets are used by traffic and to change the visual character of our streets so they look like sociable places. But I believe such change must be based on a deeper understanding of the nature of conflict between different road users which does not yet appear to exist amongst the highway engineers who will be entrusted with implementing Shared Space. So watch this, er, space.

Shared space

There's a new vogue for the concept of Shared Space, apparently pioneered by the late Hans Monderman of the Netherlands. The idea derives from the much earlier Dutch experiments with Woonerven (literally living yards, but now known as Home Zones in the UK). Instead of trying to segregate different road users by physical (footways, cycleways) and temporal (traffic lights) means the Shared Space concept throws them together in an anarchic way and lets them all "negotiate" their conflicting ways by "eye contact".

It works surprisingly well, we are told, at least in the Netherlands. The lack of road markings, signs and priorities means everyone is in doubt about how to proceed through the Shared Space, so they do so slowly and tentatively, looking other road users in the eye to establish that fundamental human contact which at least acknowledges the other person's existence, and by extension their equally valid claim on the space being competed for. Because the approach requires a lot of the clutter of road signage to be removed, public spaces are left looking better.

But a word of caution. The UK is not the Netherlands. We do not have their tradition of respect for cycling or their familiarity with the concepts of sharing space. The attitude of many motorists is that they pay for the roads and they have prior rights over walkers and cyclists, who they see as freeloaders. That attitude is bolstered by continued references to Road Tax instead of Vehicle Excise Duty, even though Road Tax as something specifically raised to pay for roads was abandoned well over 80 years ago and only lasted for 16 years anyway!

In any case, Shared Space is hardly a new concept. Apart from the partial segregation of walkers using pavements (footways), the public highway has always been a Shared Space in principle. The roundabout is an example of Shared Space which is far more common in the UK than elsewhere in Europe or North America, but in most cases they are perceived as hostile to cyclists and walkers. For decades in the UK the pressure has been towards more segregation, often at the request of walkers and particularly cyclists, who look enviously at the extensive networks of segregated cycleways in the Netherlands.

So let's not assume that Shared Space is a panacea for our traffic problems. Without a fundamental change in attitudes on the part of all road users it will simply allow motorists more scope for using their inherent might to assert priority over walkers and cyclists, exactly as has happened over the last century. Not only do motorists need to understand that they have no greater right to road space than anyone else, but walkers and cyclists need to be encouraged to be more aware and assertive of their rights. Perhaps only giving walkers and cyclists prior rights over motorists will restore some kind of balance.