Towards Shared Space, Ben Hamilton Baile

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URBAN DESIGN International

Copyright 2008 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd


Volume 13

Number 2

Summer 2008

Special Issue: An international review of liveable

street thinking and practice

57Editorial

Mike Biddulph

61The upgrading of the sidewalk: from traditional

working-class colonisation to the squatting practices of urban middle-class families

Lia Karsten

67Liveable streets and social inclusion

Daniel Sauter and Marco Huettenmoser

80AMELIA: making streets more accessible for

people with mobility diffi cultiesRoger L. Mackett, Kamalasudhan Achuthan

and Helena Titheridge

90Traffi c calming in the United States:

are we following Europes lead?Reid Ewing

105Transitioning urban arterial roads to

activity corridorsCarey Curtis and Reena Tiwari

121Reviewing the UK home zone initiatives

Mike Biddulph

130Towards shared spaceBen Hamilton-Baillie

Mike Biddulph sets the scene about liveable streets based on Appleyards original concept from 1981 and explains how this issue pulls together a number of papers which refl ect on how these issues are being thought about and how they are affecting the design and management of more liveable streets internationally.

Lia Karsten refl ects on the extent to which street activity, previously rejected within Dutch society, has been progressively reappropriated in the Netherlands by middle class residents returning to live within older, denser, more central, former working class neighbourhoods.

Exploring similar themes and techniques to Appleyard, Daniel Sauter and Marco Huettenmoser compare the impact of traffi c volume on the quantity and quality of street life in streets in Basel, Switzerland. They discuss how quieter streets offer the greatest potential for a richer community life and examine how this has been achieved.

Roger Mackett et al have developed software to evaluate the accessibility of environments for people who, due to a physical disability, are less mobile. Using a case study from St. Albans in the UK they show how changes to these details can make signifi cant differences to how such people might use the streets and gain access to the services that they need.

Reid Ewing and ? Lane examine the extent to which traffi c calming has been adopted in the US. They argue that the US is behind some states in Europe and note in particular that calming measures are not necessarily developed in association with an integrated package of measures designed to create environments really fi t for walking or cycling.

Carey Curtis and Reena Tiwari discuss the important process of turning arterial strips into what they call activity corridors. The article examines strategic work in Perth, Western Australia undertaken to help turn important roads into vibrant walkable streets by creating an operational strategy for development which can be adopted by planning and highways professionals.

Mike Biddulph reviews the impact of the UKs home zone initiatives which saw the legal designation in the UK of streets equivalent to the Dutch woonerf and funding, in England at least, for a series of demonstration projects across the country.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie discusses the role of shared space projects, and in particular notes the importance of work in Fiesland in the north of the Netherlands by Hans Monderman, and its impact on how street space is being conceived in parts of the UK.

Special Issue: An international review of liveable street thinking and practice

Towards shared space

Ben Hamilton-Baillie*

Hamilton-Baillie Associates Ltd, 94 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2QX, UK

The streets and spaces that constitute the majority of our public realm play an increasingly important role inthe economic and social foundations of towns and cities. Simultaneously, public dissatisfaction with theclutter and barriers associated with conventional traffic engineering is growing. There is also growingrecognition of the links between health and the quality of the built environment. New approaches toreconciling the relationship between traffic and the public realm represent a significant challenge to long-standing assumptions underpinning the conventional segregation of traffic from civic space associated withestablished policy and practice. Often labelled shared space, such schemes raise important questions aboutrisk and safety, the role of government in regulating and controlling behaviour and the conventionalprofessional boundaries of urban designers and traffic engineers. A radical review of the role of governmentin regulating and controlling street design, combined with decisive changes in the organisational structureand processes employed by highway authorities is implied if the benefits for safety, traffic capacity,health and economic vitality from shared space are to be realised. This paper outlines the backgroundand principles underpinning shared space, and describes some of the significant examples in the UK andmainland Europe.URBAN DESIGN International (2008) 13, 130138. doi:10.1057/udi.2008.13

Keywords: shared space; road safety; street design; public realm; public health

Introduction

Despite local policies to prioritise walking andcycling, and impressive initiatives such as theUKs National Cycle Network, it would appearthat public dissatisfaction with British streets as awhole continues to increase. As the most acces-sible and immediate component of the publicrealm, the poor quality of our streetscapes hasimportant effects on communities, travel patternsand lifestyles. As streets become less attractive,people are less inclined to spend time in them forsocial activities. Walking and cycling become lessattractive, public perceptions of safety decline andactivities such as play transfer from the publicrealm to private space.

The implications for physical activity and healthfrom a decline in quality of the public realmare hard to quantify. The increase in sedentarylifestyles has been well documented, especially

the change in childrens travel patterns. Widerinter-connections between the environment andhealth are more hypothetical, especially the linksbetween the public realm and mental health.While traffic volumes and travel patterns arerelatively well documented, the informal use ofstreets and public spaces has rarely been thesubject of quantitative analysis. But it is a reason-able hypothesis that an incoherent and unattrac-tive public realm does not promote general healthand well-being.

It is not difficult to identify what it is about UKstreetscapes that make them so unattractive asplaces to attract informal public activity andhuman presence. Take a snapshot of the centreor focal point of almost any neighbourhood, townor village, and it is likely to be dominated bythe standardised features associated with conven-tional traffic engineering. White lines, yellowlines, zig-zags and garish cross-hatching willcharacterise the asphalt of the horizontal plane;traffic signals, road signs and steel pedestrianguard rails will fill the vertical plane (Figure 1).

*Correspondence: Tel: 44 (0)117 9114221 or 44 (0)7968774280, E-mail: [email protected]

URBAN DESIGN International (2008) 13, 130138r 2008 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1357-5317/08

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udi udi200813

Busier roads will have underpasses or bridges, andconcrete kerbs, barriers and traffic islands willfragment the space, isolating small residual spacesfor pedestrians from each other and from thetraffic. Compensatory measures for people withvisual or physical disabilities, such as drop kerbs,standardised tactile paving and beeping pedes-trian crossing signals add to the visual and audioconfusion. Our streets are not welcoming places.

Many noteworthy examples of urban regenera-tion have begun to restore confidence in busiercity centres and brought a welcome renewedinterest in the potential for lively public spaces,but successful schemes are the exception, not therule. At the other end of the urban spectrum, afew celebrated (and usually expensive) homezones have raised expectations for new relation-ships between people and traffic on quieterresidential streets (Department for Transport,2005) (Figure 2). Between these two extremes,the average High Street, radial urban distributorroad or village centre is at best tolerated, and atworst avoided by anyone seeking pleasurablehuman interaction. And the problem is especiallyevident among the poorer sectors of society. Morearticulate communities have the resources, staminaand energy to do battle with traffic engineering torestore distinctiveness to their neighbourhoods.

For deprived neighbourhoods the idea of anattractive public realm as a place to foster infor-mal physical activity associated with walking,cycling and interacting for pleasure seems remote.However, many of us have glimpsed the poten-tial, while people watching from a pavement cafein a European place or piazza, admiring itsunique character that forms the stage for every-day human interaction in the fascinating pastimeof people watching.

Why has this loss of the public realmhappened?

The streets and public spaces that make up thepublic realm of our cities, towns and villages havealways had to serve a multitude of purposesessential to our social, cultural and economicneeds. Principally these purposes fall into twobroad categories; those associated with movementand transport, and those associated with socialexchange and interaction. The balance betweenthese two complementary functions, and thenature, design and use of the public realm, appearsto both reflect and determine our social values, andradically affect our activity patterns and behaviour.

The introduction of motorised vehicles during thelast century posed new challenges for the way we

Figure 1. The impact of traditional engineering measures on the urban environment.

Towards shared spaceB. Hamilton-Baillie

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use the public realm. The ability, and desire, tomove vehicles at greater speeds and in greatervolumes gave rise to new ideas, technologiesand policies aimed at balancing the need forsafety and accessibility. A new professionemerged of traffic engineering, premised on aseries of assumptions and principles; a professionseparated from the design professions of archi-tecture, landscape architecture and what wouldbecome urban design. Streets became increasinglyregulated by governments through the use of

consistent, standardised mechanisms of highwayrules, control systems and markings. In 1963 theBuchanan report, Traffic in Towns, established thekey policy framework for streets (Ministry ofTransport, 1963). Central to its conclusions wasthe need to segregate traffic movement frompedestrians and social activities (Figure 3). Theprinciple of separation and segregation hascontinued to guide policy in relation to our builtenvironment ever since, both in the UK and acrossmuch of the developed world.

Figure 3. The concept of segregation from the Buchanan Report.

Figure 2. The Methleys Home Zone, Leeds.


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In recent years there has been an increasingrecognition of the widespread, unforeseen im-plications of a policy of segregation. It wouldappear to contributed to the rapid decline inlevels of walking and cycling. The need forunderpasses, bridges, traffic signals, barriers andcontrols, implicit in achieving segregation, hasreduced accessibility for non-motorised traffic.Isolation, inequalities, and a fragmented anddegraded public realm were outcomes not antici-pated by Buchanan and his team. In addition tothe detrimental effects on health from reducedoptions for movement, the policy of trafficsegregation has not appeared to deliver the safetybenefits anticipated. Pedestrian casualties, espe-cially among children, continue to be a centralcause for concern (DETR, 2000). An increasingunderstanding of behavioural psychology and thephenomenon known as risk compensation effect(of which more below) may explain the persistentproblems of road safety associates with currenttraffic policy.

What can be done to promote successfulpublic spaces?

The policy of segregation, applied to the design ofthe streetscapes of cities, towns and villages hasspawned two quite distinct and separated areasof professional interest. Traffic engineering hasdeveloped as a discipline focused closely on theefficient movement of motor vehicles. The train-ing, philosophy and practice of traffic engineershave evolved in isolation from those otherprofessions responsible for the public realm.Bringing these two areas together to combine anunderstanding of the multiple purposes of streetsand public space is thus essential to integratingthe complex functions (see eg CABE, Institutionof Highways and Transportation and EnglishHeritage, 2006). The schism extends to govern-ment organisation; in the UK the Department forTransport is responsible for streets, while theDepartment for Communities and Local Govern-ment is responsible for urban policy and publicspace.

Encouraging the creation of the type of streets andpublic spaces that promote the informal, sponta-neous activities associated with physical andmental health and well-being requires a cleardistinction to be drawn between such streets andthe highway. This is not to argue that cars andvehicles need necessarily be removed from the

public realm. But increasing numbers of examplessuggest that the removal of the familiar character-istics associated with the highway, such as roadmarkings, traffic signals, signs, kerbs, bollardsand barriers can dramatically change the relation-ship between people, places and traffic. In theabsence of rules, predictability and certainty,drivers have to rely on cultural signals andinformal social protocols. Speeds reduce, eyecontact becomes the norm, and the driver becomesa part of her or his social surroundings and context.

Reduction in the speed of traffic is the single mostimportant measure to permit the multiple uses ofstreets and public spaces. Numerous studies ofthe relationship between traffic speed and pedes-trians suggest a qualitative change occurs some-where around 20mph (30 kph) (see eg DETR, 1996and 1997 and Pilkington, 2000). It is probably nocoincidence that 20mph is close to the maximumhuman evolutionary speed; our skull thicknessand physiology are sized for impact up to ourmaximum running speed. Conventional highwaypolicy in the UK has assumed a legal limit of30mph and engineers have designed for speedsof around 35mph.

Designing for lower speeds, appropriate to thehuman context of streets and public spaces, isthe most critical measure to restore the balancebetween people and vehicles. Interestingly, em-pirical evidence also suggests that journey timesfor vehicles improve at lower steady speeds, dueto greater efficiencies at intersections (Hamilton-Baillie and Jones, 2005).

Achieving lower speeds does not require increas-ing regulatory controls, enforcement and conven-tional interventions such as traffic calming. Onthe contrary, removing the legal and state-definedcontrols appears to allow the much more power-ful social behavioural constraints to come intoplay. The less the manifestations of the highwayare evident, the more drivers rely on theirremarkable ability as humans to read situationsand adapt to circumstances. As David Engwichthas pointed out traffic speeds are determined,above all else, by driven perceptions of humanpresence in the street, or what Engwicht calls thedegree of psychological retreat from streets.Reversing such a retreat requires street designersand users to grasp every opportunity to empha-sise human presence and activity in the spacesbetween buildings. (Engwicht, 1993, 1999, 2006).


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The greatest cultural change necessary to restorespontaneous human activity in our public realmis a fresh understanding of the importance ofaccepting risk as an essential component ofactivity and interaction. The policy of segregation,so central to the segregation of urban trafficengineering, has assumed that risks should beminimised in the pursuit of safety. But asProfessor John Adams and others have pointedout, risk is essential to human activity, and henceto the creation of successful public space (Adams,1995). A recognition of risk compensation effectprompts a fresh understanding of the adverseeffects of measures such as traffic signals, signs,pedestrian guard rails and barriers on safety, andof their tendency to discourage informal physicalactivity. It may seem perverse to argue that wellbeing can be improved through making spacesfeel riskier, but that is the firm conclusion fromboth research, and from empirical studies (CABE,2005, 2007).

Interesting echoes of Professor Adams observa-tions concerning the importance of risk can befound in research findings on the relationshipbetween the attempts to design out risk fromchildrens play equipment, and the activities ofchildren. The Daisy Chain survey of 2002 by theChildrens Society and the Childrens Play Coun-cil noted that extensive investment in saferplaygrounds had achieved no measurable im-provement in child health or safety. It had merelytransferred the risk elsewhere, either reducingactivity and thus increasing problems associatedwith sedentary lifestyles or shifting activity tomore dangerous locations (Ball, 2007). Likewisethe removal of pedestrian safety barriers in therecent renovation of Kensington High Street(against the advice of safety engineers) appearsto have significantly improved the accidentfigures for pedestrians (Swinburne, 2005). Increas-ing the apparent risks appear to encourage moreengagements of both drivers and pedestrians withtheir surroundings, causing adaptions is thebehaviour of both. Levels of pedestrian activityin Kensington High Street have also significantlyincreased.

Breaking down the conventional divide betweenengineers and the design professions requiresdecisive changes in the organisational structure oflocal and national government. In addition, afresh appreciation of the value of risk and thenature of safety means that standard processes,

such as street adoption standards and safetyauditing, need fundamental rethinking. Healthand wellbeing are so closely and intricately linkedto every aspect of our lives, that the single-issuemethod of evaluating public space is no longerappropriate. Transport assessments, safety audits,environmental and aesthetic considerations can-not be isolated from each other or from healthassessments; they are all critical to patterns ofphysical and social activity.

What examples and precedents dowe already have?

The principles underpinning the integration of allaspects of movement and interaction into thedesign and management of streets have beenevident for at least 30 years in mainland Europe.Early examples in The Netherlands came in theform of woonerven, and focused around newapproaches to the design and management ofresidential streets (see Royal Dutch Touring Club,1977 for the original explanation and justificationin English). In recent years the term shared space hasbeen increasingly applied to places where traffichas been successfully integrated into busier cities,towns and villages. The most notable examplesare to be found in Denmark, Sweden and TheNetherlands, although there are examples inalmost all European countries. The principles arerelatively new to the UK, but there are alreadyenough examples to encourage further research,training and application of the approach (SharedSpace Project, 2005, 2008) (Figure 4).

The best documented example of shared space isthe remodelling of a number of intersections in theDutch town of Drachten, in the northern provinceof Friesland. The busiest, the Laweiplein, outside thecitys theatre was previously a conventional trafficsignal-controlled large intersection handlingaround 20000 vehicles per day. The dismalsurroundings of this busy junction, and the wideapproach roads were congested, dangerous, anddid little to foster civic activity. Pedestrian andbicycle routes were inconvenient and unattractive(Figure 5: Laweiplein before treatment).

The reconstructed square includes a compactroundabout that forms an integral part of acoherent area of public space. Vertical water jetsunite the space; their height responding to thevolume of traffic. Despite the volumes of traffic,


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the informal protocols that have emerged sponta-neously among drivers, cyclists and pedestriansallow free-flowing movement and a lively,animated public realm to emerge. The fountainsattract human activity, especially childrens play,close to cars, buses and trucks manoeuvringaround the central island. The proximity helpsto slow traffic, which in turn improves the trafficflows. After a few years of operation the new

arrangement has succeeded in creating a spacethat encourages public life (Figure 6).

Blackett Street in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was remodelled 5 years ago to allowpedestrians and cyclists to move freely amongthe delivery traffic, taxis and high volume of busesthat move through this lively urban space. Thereare no physical barriers or formal pedestrian

Figure 4. The shared space concept.

Figure 5. Laweiplein before treatment.


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crossings, yet injury accident rates have declineddespite increases in volumes of pedestrians(CABE Space, 2007). An informal protocol withthe bus companies maintains bus speeds ataround 10mph (Figure 7).

In the heart of Covent Garden, the busy intersec-tion known as Seven Dials represents a small, buteffective example of shared space. In place oftraffic signals, highway markings or a conven-tional roundabout, the space was remodelled 20

years ago to encourage human presence at thefoot of the column in the centre. Some drivers usethe monument as a roundabout, some do not. Theelement of uncertainty and the relaxed inform-ality in the way the use of space responds to theweather and to the surrounding pubs and cafescreates a memorable, safe and efficient trafficintersection and piece of public realm (Figure 8).

Numerous completed schemes in Denmark,Germany, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands

Figure 6. Laweiplein after treatment.

Figure 7. Blackett Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.


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are increasingly inspiring the application ofshared space in the UK. Highway authorities,including Devon, Dorset, East Sussex, Kentand Suffolk County Councils, several LondonBoroughs as well as unitary authorities such as Bath& North East Somerset, Edinburgh, Manchesterand Newcastle are introducing shared space as akey policy component to bring together aspira-tions for combining efficient traffic circulation,modal shift to walking and cycling, enhancementto the public realm and improved health.

Promoting Further Action

The awareness, acceptance and implementation ofshared space principles are essential if a stepchange in the quality and coherence of the publicrealm is to be realised. To achieve this, action isneeded at three parallel levels the political, theprofessional and with the public.

Shared space, fostering the multiple uses of streetsand spaces for every kind of social activity as wellas movement, requires the formal abandonment ofthe principle of segregation in urban trafficengineering. A radical withdrawal by the statefrom the tendency to standardise and regulate thepublic realm is necessary. Key regulatory highwaydocuments such as, for example in the UK, theTraffic Signs and General Directions statutory instru-

ment should be withdrawn from use in the builtenvironment and from quiet rural roads (HMGovernment, 2002). Government advice on safety,on street design, on driver training and the high-way code, and the guidance given to localauthorities requires radical review in the light ofsuccessful shared space schemes that challenge theconventions and assumptions that underpin them.At a local level, clear and determined politicalleadership is required to question the orthodoxiesthat have given us such poor streetscapes, and toprovide the encouragement and protection toofficers prepared to innovate and introduce bestpractice from elsewhere.

To overcome the gulf that exists between trafficengineering and the design professions organi-sational, cultural and educational change is re-quired. Almost all local authorities currentlyseparate the two activities into distinct departments,usually in different buildings, and often intodifferent levels of government. Responsibility forstreets is usually fragmented among 2030 separateagencies, rarely with any overall coordination.

Institutional changes are needed among the keyprofessions. Improving health through clearerfocus on the quality of the public realm calls fora shake up of the conventional professionalassociations such as, for example in the UK, the

Figure 8. Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London.


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Institute of Highway Incorporated Engineers, theInstitute of Highways and Transportation andthe Institute of Civil Engineers who focus onhighways, and bodies such as the Royal Instituteof British Architects, Landscape Design Instituteand the loosely confederated Urban DesignGroup who are trying to embrace a broaderdesign agenda for the public realm. Welcomeinitiatives by CABE and English Heritage (CABE,Institution of Highways and Transportation andEnglish Heritage, 2006) have begun to combinethe training of both sides of the divide. Theeducation of urban planners, urban designers aswell as traffic engineers in the relevance of thepublic realm also requires bold changes inuniversities and technical colleges.

Changing attitudes among the public, the peoplewho inhabit and animate our streets and publicspaces, is made easier by the evident dissatisfac-tion with the status quo. Publicity and awarenessof successful schemes is critical to overcomingscepticism and ambivalence about the oftencounter-intuitive outcomes of shared space. Atpresent, little opportunity is offered to the publicto influence, or even comment on, the highwaymeasures that are installed in our streets andpublic spaces. Encouraging communities, neigh-bourhoods and local political groups to demandmore involvement in defining the public realmrequires advocacy and confidence building at alocal level. But the impact of a few, well-publicised local schemes can clearly transformattitudes towards the possibilities for creating apublic realm that promotes the sort of activitiestaken for granted in former decades, and whichappear to be a vital ingredient in promoting andmaintaining health and well-being.

Shared space, and the creation of a public realmfree of barriers to simple day-to-day movementand interaction, requires a change in the mentalmap of every person as they step outside theirfront door. Pioneering examples in the UK andin mainland Europe suggest that the cultural,political and institutional hurdles to redrawingsuch maps are less forbidding than is often feared.The time seems right to allow this new initiativeto help link the spaces between our buildings intoa coherent, continuous and life-enhancing publicrealm.

References

Adams, J. (1995) Risk. London: Routledge.Ball, D. (2007) Risk and the demise of childrens play, in

Thom, B., Sales, R. and Pearce, J. (eds.) Growing upwith Risk. Bristol: Policy Press.

CABE, Institution of Highways and Transportation andEnglish Heritage. (2006) Streets for People: HowHighways and Transportation Professionals can Helpmake Better Places. London: CABE.

CABE Space. (2005) What are we Scared of? The Value ofRisk in Designing Public Space. London: CABE.

CABE Space. (2007) Living with Risk: Promoting BetterPublic Space Design. London: CABE.

CABE Space. (2007) This way to better streets. Ten casestudies. London: CABE.

Department of the Environment, Transport and theRegions. (1996) Review of Traffic Calming Schemes in20mph Zones. London: DETR.

Department of the Environment, Transport and theRegions. (1997) Road Safety Strategy: CurrentProblems and Future Solutions. London: DETR.

Department of the Environment, Transport and theRegions. (2000) Tomorrows Roads: Safer for Everyone.London: DETR.

Department for Transport. (2005) Home Zones: Challen-ging the Future of our Streets. London: DfT.

Engwicht, D. (1993) Reclaiming our Cities and Towns:Better Living with Less Traffic. Philadelphia, PA:New Society Publishers.

Engwicht, D. (1999) Street Reclaiming: Creating LivableStreets and Vibrant Communities. Philadelphia, PA:New Society Publishers.

Engwicht, D. (2006) Mental Speed Bumps. AnnandaleSW: Envirobooks.

Hamilton-Baillie, B. and Jones, P. (2005) Improvingtraffic behaviour through urban design, Proceedingsof the Institution of Civil Engineers, 158: 3947.

HM Government. (2002) The Traffic Signs Regulations andGeneral Directions order. Statutory Instrument No.3113, London: HMSO.

Ministry of Transport. (1963) Traffic in Towns: A Study ofthe Long Term Problems of Traffic in Urban Areas.London: HMSO.

Pilkington, P. (2000) Reducing the speed limit to 20 mphin urban areas Child deaths and injuries wouldbe decreased, British Medical Journal, April 29;320(7243): 1160.

Royal Dutch Touring Club. (1977) Woonerf. The Hague:RDTC.

Shared Space Project. (2005) Shared Space: Room forEveryone: a new vision for public spaces, FryslanProvince, PO Box 20120, 8900 HM Leeuwarden,The Netherlands.

Shared Space Project. (2008) Shared Space: FromProject to Process: a task for everyone, FryslanProvince, PO Box 20120, 8900 HM Leeuwarden,The Netherlands.

Swinburne, G. (2005) Report on Road Safety in KensingtonHigh Street. London: Royal Borough of Kensingtonand Chelsea.


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