Check out this fantasic article in Wired about the ways to solve traffic congestion, make road travel safer for cars and pedestrians, and how to envigorate over-crowded areas. The solution? Less road signs and markings:
- Hans Monderman is a traffic engineer who hates traffic signs. Oh, he can put up with the well-placed speed limit placard or a dangerous curve warning on a major highway, but Monderman considers most signs to be not only annoying but downright dangerous. To him, they are an admission of failure, a sign - literally - that a road designer somewhere hasn't done his job. "The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there's a problem with a road, they always try to add something," Monderman says. "To my mind, it's much better to remove things."
The following quote from Ian Lockwood, who is a transportation and design consultant, rang particularly true with me, considering I absolutely hate living in Hollywood, and pretty much the sole reason for that is because of the traffic:
- "The cities that continue on their conventional path with traffic and land use will harm themselves, because people with a choice will leave. They'll go to places where the quality of life is better, where there's more human exchange, where the city isn't just designed for cars. The economy is going to follow the creative class, and they want to live in areas that have a sense of place. That's why these new ideas have to catch on. The folly of traditional traffic engineering is all around us."