Hans Monderman on Shared Space Transportation and Traffic Policies

Description

Project for Public Spaces:

"A traffic engineer in the Netherlands, Hans Monderman (1945 – 2008) turned urban transportation planning upside down with the groundbreaking concept of “Shared Space.” His idea is disarmingly simple: remove traffic lights, signs, crosswalks, lane markers and even curbs so that pedestrians, motorists, and cyclists must negotiate their way through streets by interacting with, and reacting to, one another.

Monderman's work demonstrated that city and village streets become safer when they are stripped of traffic controls so that drivers must take cues from observing people rather than signs. Though it sounds chaotic, the results of Shared Space have shown to be just the opposite: traffic moves slower and the rate of major accidents declines drastically.

First implemented in his native Netherlands, Monderman’s designs have since spread throughout Europe, South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Brazil, and Canada. They are also making an appearance in often car-dominated U.S. cities such as Pittsburgh, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Chicago." (https://www.pps.org/article/hans-monderman)