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Very interesting little article in NOW magazine last week about how to start implementing things learned at the Walk21 conference in Toronto in the pursuit of streets that are planned for more than just moving automobiles.
Like those in the Netherlands, Switzerland's "pedestrian priority zones",- in main shopping areas as well as residential neighbourhoods, remove the curbs that confine pedestrians to the margins, but keep the bollards and street furniture that keep cars at bay. But unlike shared streets, pedestrian priority zones are enforced by some regulations: cars are restricted to 20 kilometres per hour.The NOW article makes some really good points, such as how Cumberland Street in Yorkville and all of Kensington Market are already informal pedestrian zones - the planning in those areas (which took place before the invention of the car) has made them such intimate and "people-scaled" areas that any drivers going through them are forced to slow down because there are pedestrians and cyclists everywhere already.
[image of Kensington Market credit: Spacing Toronto]
Labels: infrastructure, news
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