Meh...
Looks like a sidewalk
Posted on 02/01/2012 2:49:31 PM PST by the scotsman
'Britain’s longest ‘clutter-free’ street was opened today with the aim of making cars and people co-exist harmoniously – without the need for hectoring signs and protective steel barriers.
Indeed, the newly revamped Exhibition Road in the heart of London’s museum quarter in Kensington, visited by millions of people from around Britain and the world, doesn’t even have kerbs or pavements.
The idea underlining the project is that when nannying rules and orders - in the form of countless signs, traffic signals and barriers - are removed, motorists take more personal responsibility for their own actions and drive more attentively, making more eye contact with pedestrians.
It may sound counter-intuitive. But experts swear that the idea pioneered in Holland really does work better for everyone and improves safety. And supporters say it is a blueprint for the 21st century high street in towns and cities across the country.
The entire half-mile long (820 metres) of road and pavement is now one continuous and wide expanse of flat ‘shared space’ surface decorated with a criss-cross chequered pattern created from a jigsaw of a million bricks of Chinese granite.
The new-look Exhibition Road project which began as an idea more than a decade ago, cost nearly £30million to complete, and has taken three years’ work.
It features a kerb-free single surface with no barriers or ‘street clutter’ – all of which have been removed.
Instead, a stunning chequered granite design runs from South Kensington Station to Hyde Park along the full width of the road from building to building in a newly created ‘shared space’.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
kerbs?
I guess they just need 20,000 CCTV cameras
Was in a town in the Netherlands where they did this. It actually works, forces everyone, pedestrians and drivers, to watch out for each other.
That being said I kind of doubt it would work in NYC or LA....
..and bomb proof store fronts.
In case anybody was wondering if there were outsourcing, international wealth transfer, aspects to the project.
Looks like a sidewalk
Where will the 30% traffic reduction go? Onto other roads in the area creating more congestion on them.
Looks like a pedestrian shopping mall that they allow cars on.
First time someone got hit by a car, the city would be sued for millions, if it were here in the U.S.
Gee. Spend 30 million pounds to import rocks. To pave one street. For one block. That already had been cleared and graded and paved.
With (fancy, coloured) bricks imported from from ... CHINA!
Doesn't the UK - like Scotland maybe - have rocks?
LOL. “It will reduce automobile traffic by 30%.” But note the real effect is to reduce the number of lanes for traffic from 4 to 2 (see the before and after pictures). Maybe drivers will hit fewer pedestrians. But the traffic will be a lot worse.
I see a big problem with this idea already.
They’re driving on the wrong side of the road!
(Seriously, I went to England once. Riding in a car there was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I have ever had.)
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