Cav's Place

It seems that I will quickly continue the series I recently started after all, if only because, out of all the topics currently swimming through my mind, this seems to be the clearest and possibly even the simplest, theoretically. Then again, why wouldn’t it be clear and simple? I certainly don’t see why should it be difficult to make the places where people live no longer require certain polluting, wasteful and potentially dangerous devices that people themselves invented only about a century ago!

Let me now give some details regarding the measures outlined in the previous post, starting with the sidewalks, which must exist on both sides of any and all surface roads that are open to motorized traffic. There should be a clear area, with a minimum width of one meter which would obviously be increased areas that see heavy pedestrian traffic, strictly reserved for pedestrians on each sidewalk. This “pedestrian lane” should be different from any lanes designed for bicycles and kept clear of any and all obstructions, including but not limited to parked vehicles, bus stops, kiosks, trees and garbage cans. In fact it would normally be understood that the entire surface of the sidewalk is reserved for pedestrians unless otherwise specified, so markings would only be needed if parking vehicles or placing kiosks would specifically be permitted in certain areas, otherwise only the authorities being able to place things, such as bus stops or trees, on the sidewalks, always making sure that the space left for pedestrians never has less than the specified minimum width. The fines for blocking the “pedestrian lane” would need to be significant.
Then pedestrians also need to be able to safely cross roads without needing to waste time looking for a suitable spot. In intersections, when it comes to roads that have no more than two lanes and see relatively little traffic, this issue can be handled with simple pedestrian crossings. However, if the traffic is significant, the road has more than two lanes or the crossing is not in an intersection, traffic lights, overpasses or underpasses are required. In fact, overpasses or underpasses would always be preferred instead of using traffic lights for pedestrian traffic as well, and for areas with heavy traffic and crossings that are not in intersections they are almost a requirement. And such crossings that wouldn’t be in intersections indeed need to exist, as pedestrians shouldn’t normally be required to walk more than 100 meters in order to safely cross a road, making 200 meters the maximum distance between crossings, though that could be slightly extended, to an absolute maximum of 250 meters, under exceptional circumstances.

Next comes the public transport network, which needs to exist in some form in all but the smallest towns and absolutely must be properly developed in all that stretch on for more than about a kilometer and a half, also having sufficient capacity to avoid overcrowding even during peak hours. All public transport services must be affordable, reasonably comfortable and very reliable, never making the passengers wait too long. Adding a subway network is recommended when the total area covered by the city exceeds 20 kilometers and the population exceeds 50000, becoming mandatory for cities with a total area greater than 50 kilometers. To ensure good coverage, surface stops must not be more than 500 meters apart, though that would perhaps be somewhat less than the typical distance between subway stations, the maximum being around one kilometer, to allow for higher speeds.
This would allow people who don’t have or simply don’t want to use personal motorized vehicles to get from one place to another in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, it should be a requirement that no person may need to spend a total of more than 30 minutes on foot in order to get from one place to another within any town or city, no matter how distant and unrelated the two places are. In that scenario, the time spent on foot would be calculated by adding together the time required to walk from the starting point to the first stop or station and from the last one to the destination, as well as between the proper stops or stations in case a switch is required, considering an average walking speed of three kilometers per hour but also adding the time spent waiting at traffic lights that also direct pedestrian traffic and happen to be on the respective route. Said person should also never be required to switch public transport vehicles more than once during such a trip, with the possible exception of switching subway trains in stations where the routes intersect, as long as the passengers don’t need to head back to the surface or pay any additional fee in order to do so.
In addition to all of this, lanes should be reserved for buses and similar vehicles, particularly when their routes take them on roads that usually see high traffic. If the penalties for the drivers of any other vehicles that are seen on these lanes would be harsh enough, this would ensure that people would make it through crowded areas significantly faster in a bus or similar vehicle than in their own car. Note that tram tracks don’t count as such lanes, so if they will exist they will be separate, counting as yet another reserved area. However, I do have issues with the fact that these tracks tend to be on the middle of the road, requiring people to cross to get to and out of the stop, so solutions need to be found for tram stops that aren’t in intersections.

This would probably be enough for the second post in this series. I’m saying nothing new, of course, but would sure like to see these changes implemented. Granted that the suggestions listed above are not the easiest ones to implement, the methods meant to simply encourage walking and using bicycles and public transport services and discourage driving without significantly changing the infrastructure being the ones that fit that description, but these would be extremely effective without quite requiring destroying the cities and starting over, as the particularly difficult to implement ones I mentioned in the previous post do.
The plan for the next post currently involves parks and public squares and how they may be used for this purpose, as well as some less common vehicles that could be included in a city’s public transport network. Let’s see when I’ll get around to writing it…