Pedestrian Cities – III
The second post in this series, which I wrote over six months ago, ended with something of a preview of the third. After all this time, some of those ideas are obviously no longer at the forefront of my mind and some new ones have taken precedence, especially after my recent wanderings. Still, it was a good plan, so I’ll do my best to mix and match, including as much of it as possible alongside the newer ideas. Let’s see how that’ll turn out now…
Something that was painfully obvious to me this month was that any pedestrian city needs labels everywhere, placed so people will be able to easily read them while walking past, as opposed to driving past. Alongside signs pointing to various potential places of interest, placed in more important intersections, every intersection should have labels for each of the streets and those labels shouldn’t be placed too high, in the middle of the road, only on one side or behind any kind of obstruction. It’s easy to get lost in a large city, sometimes even if you do have some knowledge of the area, so you shouldn’t need more than a glance to figure out where you are, even if you don’t know any of the landmarks that would otherwise make it easier.
In addition to those plain labels, complex intersections should have simple maps, showing which road is which and likely also specifying which to take in order to reach various nearby locations. Major intersections could supplement that with interactive kiosks, allowing people to see larger maps and find routes to all sorts of destinations within the city. As long as certain issues, such as reliability, data accuracy and somehow making sure that they won’t be used as public toilets or temporary shelter, are addressed, such kiosks are extremely useful, but the authorities must always make sure that these issues are taken care of, because otherwise the kiosks immediately become a negative element instead.
The above also holds true for parks, gardens and public squares, as those are locations where many people are likely to be at any one moment, coming from and going to many different places. Kiosks should probably be a given, alongside simple maps of the surrounding area, for those who know that the place they’re looking for is nearby. In case of parks that aren’t small and open enough to be taken in at a glance, detailed maps of the parks themselves should also be posted in various places, without excluding simple signs pointing to the important locations within the park that people may want to visit.
However, what’s even more important is the placement of these parks, gardens and squares, which should be planned in such a way as to allow as many people as possible to walk through them on their way. Particularly in case of larger parks, the main entrances should be very close to important landmarks, major intersections or other such notable locations, connecting such places and offering pedestrians a pleasant route from one to the other, away from motorized traffic and the concrete jungle. Granted that this is far more difficult to achieve with public squares and the very small parks and gardens, as that’d require important locations that are very close together, but there must be some such places and that’s exactly where such small parks, gardens and public squares need to be placed.
Making parks serve the purpose of connecting important areas of the city means that they will see an increased amount of traffic and therefore also require wide and well-maintained paved paths. These would essentially be the park’s main roads, its skeleton, likely starting from each of the main entrances and meeting in some central area, but perhaps also branching at some point along the way to provide a quicker route between two main entrances that are relatively close to each other. Any and all commercial areas, playgrounds and pretty much anything built in order to be actively used by people should only be found along these main paths.
The remaining areas should be a place for people to escape from the concrete jungle and find some peace and quiet. For any reasonably-sized park, each such area should be separated from the main paths that border it by tall hedges or thick lines of trees and contain somewhat narrow paths snaking through the vegetation, with branches and vines arching overhead and only the necessary intrusions, such as benches, lights and trash bins, plus perhaps a few discreet fountains and statues. At least one or two such areas should also exist in small parks and gardens, being placed wherever the available space allows. And, while public squares are something entirely different, those that are mostly commercial, loud or otherwise potentially taxing should have one or two small places meant to be calmer and quieter as well, somehow separated from the rest.
The last point mentioned in the previous post on the topic had to do with some less common vehicles that could be included in the public transport network and the connection between this and the rest of this post is that such vehicles could stop in parks or public squares or, in some cases, they could even be used specifically to provide transportation through large parks. I’m talking about gondola lifts, boats or driverless vehicles placed on rails, all of which could readily supplement a large city’s “traditional” transport network or even replace good parts of it in smaller cities.
Out of the listed vehicle types, only the boats are likely to be polluting, as the rest can be entirely electrical and therefore provide environmental benefits as well. Gondola lifts and boats also won’t compete with any other vehicles for road space and won’t be affected by traffic problems, plus that they could easily take people to locations that could otherwise be difficult to reach on foot. As for the driverless vehicles placed on rails, most of these could be small, for a single person or small group, and offer various predefined options for the destination, as well as a button allowing the vehicle to be stopped wherever the passengers want to get off, after which it would continue to the nearest station on its own. These could readily be used to provide transportation through large parks, but perhaps, if the computer would be reliable enough to both find the best route and also avoid any accidents, also as a sort of personalized tram network. In this latter scenario, the existing tram rails would be used, but people would be allowed to pick the stop they want to get off at regardless of their starting location, as long as there would be some way to reach the destination by navigating the available tracks.
At this point, I don’t already have a plan for the next post in this series, so I’m not sure that there will be one, but I’m certainly not ruling it out either. It’ll probably depend on how much I’ll be wandering around the city in the future and how frustrated I’ll get by the various problems faced, plus whatever else I’ll happen to notice regarding the preferential treatment those who insist on driving their own motorized vehicles continue to get.
