Navigating the future of the urban thoroughfare.
As appeared in June's issue of Monocle
As urbanisation increases, challenges such as population density, rising temperatures and carbon emissions have myriad design implications for urban centres. In this round of the Singapore Sessions, four leading experts were invited to offer their thoughts on how the urban thoroughfare should be redesigned to address the needs of future urbanites.
The Session
Click on the sessionists to find out more about their perspectives or read the full session.
Ellen Lou
Transforming auto-overrun, downtown shopping streets into pedestrian/transit malls, turns out to be far more likely to kill off active street life than enhance it.
Counter-intuitive though it might seem, moving more cars faster through city streets might not be such a hot idea.
Similarly logic-defying: Transforming auto-overrun, downtown shopping streets into pedestrian/transit malls, turns out to be far more likely to kill off active street life than enhance it. In cities like San Diego California, Chicago Illinois, Sao Paulo Brazil, and others, auto-free zones nearly always meant the decline of downtown neighborhoods, before automobile traffic was reintroduced as part of programs to re-engage visitors with their respective downtowns. In suburbia or new cities like Irvine, California, Suntec City Singapore, and others, pedestrian and vehicular movements are also often separated, with people in the malls, and their cars exiled to garages underneath. The result is lifeless streets in too-often, increasingly lifeless cities. In city after city, in fact, experience seems to prove that, to paraphrase the character Gordon Gecko in the 1987 motion picture, "Wall Street," when it comes to urban street life, "messy is good."
It may be, in fact, that mixing slow-moving vehicular traffic with pedestrian packs, schools of bicycles, vans, trucks, cafes shops, and kiosks, may not only be a good thing, but possibly the best of all possible urban transportation worlds. In any case, such semi-anarchic visions of city street life are likely to drive traffic engineers nuts, which in itself may not be such a bad idea.
What lies behind this notion of "livable streets" is that when people, activities and even auto traffic are given equal priority, it can often lead to a life-enhancing, if sometimes over-stimulated, whole. Conventional roads and large blocks can then be replaced by an integrated, fine-grained street grid, and appropriately scaled sidewalks. These are then able to create more people-oriented public spaces for walking, cycling, shopping, eating and driving as mutually reinforcing activities. What results can be a rich array that will engage people and make them want to slow down and even become part of the parade themselves.
Looking at the world's most famous, memorable and successful commercial streets; Tokyo's Omotesando, Shanghai's Huaihaizhong Road, London's Regent Street, New York's Fifth Avenue, Chicago's Michigan Avenue, San Francisco's Union Square, elements of the livable street experience provide a number of enhancements to urban street life. Traffic is slowed and easy pedestrian crossing provided through the creation of mini-parks and narrower streets. "Bulb-out" curbs provide engagement between street edge and public realm, as well as reserving places for outdoor seating. Sidewalk widths can even be tuned, as they were along Chicago's State Street, to create critical street mass and enhanced energy. Together, these and other street elements can create better, more intensive pedestrian uses, retail and commercial success and even, perhaps, the acceptance of a more leisurely pace for autos and other wheeled vehicles.
Yes
NoAbout the sessionist
Ellen Lou
Head of Urban Design and Planning
Skidmore Owings and Merrill, San Francisco
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Alejandro Gutierrez
The urban thoroughfare should be part of a whole network of public spaces where life can flourish, vibrantly and quietly, with places to meet, work and play for all kinds of people.
The urban thoroughfare should be part of a whole network of public spaces where life can flourish, vibrantly and quietly, with places to meet, work and play for all kinds of people - from elderly to kids, to youngsters and so on.
At the urban thoroughfare motorized travel will need to be low carbon and low noise technologies so that air quality is more improved from what we know, and noise levels are such that you can have a conversation without shouting and being disturbed by noisy engines or horns.
At the urban thoroughfare, access to digital, online information is commonplace, with touch screen based technology that is easily accessible, with user-friendly interfaces. These urban information network can provide you with the latest trams coming by, weather data, availability of an appointment to your GP, shows in your local cinema, air quality monitoring of your street, noise levels, recycling rates and carbon emissions of your neighbourhood, and tips on how to improve your ecological footprint.
At the urban thoroughfare, clean production of food, energy, light manufacturing should be present and part of the day to day life, so we reconnect with how things are done, generated, produced or manufactured. This would only make the urban thoroughfare more of a vibrant place.
At the urban thoroughfare, there are plenty of open spaces for recreation, wide sidewalks, small pocket parks with play areas, others with quieter places where adults can meet to play chess, domino, "bochas" or any other urban sport.
At the urban thoroughfare, cars are left just around the corner or below, in an underground carpark where charging facilities for electricity or hydrogen are found. Above on the ground, some shared surfaces for bikes and trams or low carbon buses are separated from the sidewalk by tall and mature trees. All sorts of bikes, electric mopeds and small stackable electric cars are allowed in the urban thoroughfare as they use little space when parking adjacent to the bikes.
At the urban thoroughfare, life is bustling in tune and balances with its own environment.
About the sessionist
Alejandro Gutierrez
Associate Director
Arup Urban Design
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Matthew Sweet
Cars are a menace to the health and the lives of pedestrians - but carless streets have the graveyard atmosphere of the mall.
Cars are a menace to the health and the lives of pedestrians - but carless streets have the graveyard atmosphere of the mall. I'd like the city of the future to contain cars - or car-like vehicles - but I'd like to put them in their place.
I'd like to make drivers feel ill at ease in the city - as though they were making an incursion into a space that did not belong to them. Here's a subtle way in which it might be done: I wonder how our attitudes to the presence of cars everywhere in our built environment would change if, whenever a pedestrian was killed in a traffic incident, a small brass disc was sunk into the spot where they died - bearing their name, and perhaps, the logo of the company that built the vehicle? Imagine how these plaques would cluster at dangerous junctions - memorialising the dead and mapping out the most perilous paths, encouraging pedestrians to negotiate the traffic with the necessary amount of mistrust.
Many of the best features of nineteenth-century cities are the products of capitalist self-doubt. Why do so many industrial settlements have beautiful public parks and gardens? (And baths too, until recently?) Because industrialists knew that wealth doesn't earn respect. Giving land to your community, however - and forever - will ensure that your name is pronounced with approval for hundreds of years. What would our cities look like if the wealthy were persuaded that buying everyone a park was a great idea? A commonplace idea 150 years ago.
Starting from scratch - that very phrase makes me feel queasy and oppressed. Who wants to live in a completely new place? An environment in which everything was created on the same day, and will probably fall apart simultaneously, too? A city needs a history, a memory, a temporal texture. Only Ceaucescu and the Sultan of Dubai think that amnesia can be a founding principal of urban design. Isn't there an argument now for slow urban planning? For schemes that are purposefully provisional, that have missing pieces and fallow plots to allow the next generation of architects and planners to make their own choices and adaptations - so that we're not always simply waiting for the next Year Zero?
About the sessionist
Matthew Sweet
Broadcaster and Historian
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Yam Ah Mee
To make public transport a choice mode, the system must provide good coverage, seamless connectivity, high reliability, comfort, and competitive travel time relative to cars, and charge affordable fares.
By enhancing mobility and accessibility through a combination of transport infrastructure, technology and policy, we can create a people-centric urban thoroughfare that is easy and pleasant to get around.
People will choose reliable public transport as the mode of choice, reserving cars for discretionary trips. Pedestrian-friendly walkways and cycling tracks are also easily accessible and healthy alternatives.
Road and rail systems can be integrated in a hub-and-spoke model. Feeder bus services bring commuters directly to major transfer hubs where they seamlessly transfer to longer-haul bus or train services. Transport nodes can also become bustling lifestyle hubs by co-locating commercial and retail developments.
The public transport system needs to be built based on the "total journey" experience of the user and accommodate diverse needs. More wheelchair-accessible buses, barrier-free facilities and clear signs will help people, especially those less mobile, to move around. Covered walkways and underground passages linking transport nodes to one another or to nearby buildings will protect commuters from sun and rain.
Intelligent transport systems will also play key roles. Video traffic surveillance will provide real-time updates to motorists and public transport users, while the dynamic optimisation of traffic signals will minimise road congestion. Demand management measures will also help to optimise road usage and ensure smooth-flowing traffic.
These solutions will help people to move around in a manner that is more comfortable, efficient and sustainable, contributing to the liveability and vibrancy of the city.
To make public transport a choice mode, the system must provide good coverage, seamless connectivity, high reliability, comfort, and competitive travel time relative to cars, and charge affordable fares. In Singapore, for example, the rail network will double to reach a density of 51 km per million people by 2020, which means commuters will be able to access a rapid transit station within 5 min walk on average. Real-time bus arrival information will also be available for all bus stops island-wide to help commuters make informed travel decisions.
About the sessionist
Yam Ah Mee
Chief Executive
Singapore Land Transport Authority
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FEB 201211
Posted by Arthur, UnitedStates
In Manhattan the streets look like a parking lot.. Streets have been closed off and made it worse. I believe that traffic can be eliminated by providing ways that traffic just passing through could be routed through an under pass. For example cars in Queens want to go to the other side of Manhattan to enter the tunnel. So If a bypass can be provided, that would eliminate that traffic. Also if they made it by permit only. If you live and if you work where a car is necessary and of course delivery vehicles. All others can take public transportation. Some can park there cars in Brooklyn or Queens in any parking facility and take a bus or a train or a taxi into the city.
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FEB 201207
Posted by Carl, UnitedKingdom
maybe the dangers of walking in a public place has an effect on the problem. With easy access the shoppers target is achieved with minimum contact with other human beings. If you park underground you could get attacked etc and you can also check to see if the shop is open by driving past before entering.
C Higginson Coventry England
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JUL 201109
Posted by James, UnitedStates
I think you are on the right track, but i would like to add taxis to the mix. Rather than single occupant automobiles, develop a new age "high tech" taxi company that delivers true customer service. If it is made attractive enough, downtown dwellers can use taxis for the trips that they can't or won't make by foot or bicycle. Part of the sustainability is to provide alternatives to the single occupant automobile.
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