david pritchard. bibliography.

Notes on Roberts, Quality Streets: How traditional urban centres benefit from traffic calming [8]

Interestingly enough, this is apparently the first publication to translate the term "traffic calming" into English (from the German Verkehrsberuhigung) and to bring the concept to the attention of transportation planners in other parts of the world [7, p. 145].

Traffic restraint has contributed to economic improvements. The most notable measure is retail turnover: the majority of shops in pedestrianised streets world-wide have experienced greater turnover, and shops in non-pedestrianised streets clamour to become part of a network of streets for people. [... W]hile shopkeepers and central area users often oppose any form of restraint, they quickly become supportive when they see how it benefits them.

[p. 5]

How important is the private car to the economy of traditional urban centres? The research shows that is it less important than commonly held, provided there is good public transport linking the rest of the city (and to a considerable extent, the hinterland) to its centre. Three investigations were undertaken on this theme: shopping modal split; car parking provision; and US experience. The first showed that car use for shopping is nothing like as high as might generally be imagined and that in many cities there has been a distinct shift toward public transport for shopping purposes; having a large resident population within walking, cycling or bus access to the centre was also of great importance. In the second, car parking provision appears unrelated either to retail turnover or to rents paid on retail establishments. In the third, US experience shows that blind adherence to market principles and the omnipresence of the automobile can lead to a city centre's shopping deteriorating or even disappearing altogether.

[pp. 5-6]


Table 1: Public Car Parking Spaces according to Gross Retailing Floorspace and Turnover in the Central Business District, Table G-5, p. 96. Sources: numerous planning departments and HGZ.
City 1985 Population 1984-85 Public car parking spaces 1978-79 Gross Retail Floorspace (m2) Floor space per car parking space (m2) 1978 turnover per square meter (000 DM)
Bonn 290 888 7 440 172 100 23.1 5.2
Bremen 526 377 11 000 303 472 27.5 4.2
Cologne 965 274 26 800 681 000 25.4 4.6
Dortmund 576 796 9 000 378 300 42.0 4.8
Essen 624 625 8 000 301 100 37.6 4.4
Freiburg 179 000 4 611 208 000 45.1 4.6
Hanover 536 186 11 960 398 000 33.3 4.8
Munich 1 281 613 8 250 416 600 50.5 8.3
Nuremburg 465 255 6 000 302 600 50.4 3.8
Stuttgart 551 147 19 300 460 400 23.8 5.0


The cities with the highest ratio [of floorspace per parking space] (i.e. least parking spaces) were Munich and Nuremburg, followed by Freiburg. Those with the lowest ratio were Bonn, Stuttgart and Dortmund. The relationship between this ratio and the turnover per m2 of shopping floorspace is shown in Figure 2-6 [and Table G-5]. In fact, the figure shows there is little relationship between car parking provision and turnover. Instead of a curve, fitted to a scatter from top left to bottom right of the graph that would occur if conventional wisdom (i.e. the more car space, the higher the turnover) were correct, there is a narrow range of turnover within a wide range of car parking spaces. The solitary exception is Munich, whose very high turnover per m2 is the best in Germany, probably explained by its superlative public transport provision.

Allowing for the fact that other forces are operating on the pattern in Figure 2-6 and that there are only 10 examples (the only ones for which all the data was available), this still appears to be an important finding. It is possible that an excess of parking spaces, above some threshold which we have not had the resources to determine, acts against the success of a traditional shopping centre for several reasons, for example the centre's environment deteriorates in direct proportion to the number of cars moving and parked within it [...] Another example is that car parks form a physical barrier to the expansion of retail trade.

[p. 16]

Case Study: Vienna, Austria

[p. 26]

Case Study: Copenhagen, Denmark

[p. 46]

Before the pedestrian of Strøget [in Copenhagen's CBD], fears had been expressed about the effects on traffic volumes in surrounding streets. Lemberg [5] noted that, overall only 76% of the traffic displaced from the Strøget reappeared on surrounding streets, the remainder was discouraged from driving in the centre at all. During the rush-hour the "evaporation" of Strøget traffic was even more pronounced as only 38% of the traffic which previously used Strøget reappeared elsewhere, and some parallel streets actually experienced a small reduction in traffic. CBD through traffic declined by 25%. Patronage of bus and tram services which had previously run along Strøget fell slightly between 1962 and 1963 with some stabilisation by 1964. While this must be set alongside a city-wide decline in patronage and the suggestion that many passengers now used services and stops on the edge of the CBD, the figures do suggest that if public transport is successfully to complement traffic restraint, good access must be maintained.

[pp. 61-62]

Case Study: Lyons, France

[p. 68]

Shopping Outside the Centre [of Lyons]

There is a wide choice of places to shop, and a 1980 survey incorporated 13 sites outside the centre: the survey found the consumer often chose one that was less accessible but more attractive. People still walk to shops near home for products like bread [1]. Supermarkets are visited weekly, hypermarkets monthly or annually, large non-food outlets episodically [1]. There are few very large stores in Lyons apart from Euromarché at Part-Dieu and a Carrefour hypermarket at Vénissieux, though this is not because COURLY discourages them.


Table 2: Shopping Modal Splits in 1983, %. [10,3].
  Food       Non-food    
  Small shop Street market Supermarket Hypermarket Small shop Other types Large stores
Walk 71.5 56.1 41.9 7.2 27.6 4.8 10.2
Car 24.3 30.2 52.0 89.0 58.7 32.8 80.1
Public transport 1.8 3.1 3.8 2.9 11.0 2.7 8.6
Other 1.7 2.0 2.0 0.6 1.2 0.3 0.7
No response 0.7 8.6 0.3 0.3 1.5 59.4 0.4


[pp. 72-73]

The policies first implemented in German residential areas originated in the Netherlands. Individual planners in Delft had tried to improve the street environment in areas of old housing stock, and most of these street improvements paralleled rehabilitation of dwellings. Street improvements took the form of substantial tree planting, narrowing the carriageway, increasing the space for social activities and giving residents part of the street space gained so they could create their own individual designs. Mostly footways were eliminated, cars had to drive at walking pace and parking was limited to specific areas. These schemes started around 1970, became known as Woonerven (living yards) and were quickly adopted by other Dutch local authorities. By 1976 the Woonerven obtained legal status expressed through a traffic sign. Originally Woonerven only appeared in residential streets with low traffic flows. The Woonerven concept was then extended to shopping streets, which were termed 'Winkelerven'.

It was not surprising that the Land closest to the Dutch border, North Rhine Westphalia, was the first to adopt the Woonerf concept. Another reason was that this Land was controlled by the Social Democratic Party which was politically interested in promoting car restraint policies. In 1977, this Land started a pilot programme of Verkehrsberuhigung (traffic calming) and `Tempo 30' in several towns. During this time the concept of `winkelerven' was also introduced—according to Monheim [6] there were at least 56 winkelerven in small towns and villages in this Land. Furthermore, there have been many new types of combination of winkelerven and pedestrianisation.

[p. 88]

Case Study: Freiburg, Federal Republic of Germany

[p. 102]

Case Study: Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany

[p. 120]

Case Study: Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany

[p. 138]

Case Study: London, Great Britain

[p. 162]

Case Study: Bologna, Italy

[p. 186]

Another facet of the commune's traffic restraint was the refusal to increase the volume of parking provision within Bologna. The commune argued that additional provision would increase demand both for further parking space and for road space. Since the commune was developing a policy to encourage the use of public transport wherever possible, the issue of new parking provision, even on the periphery of the historic centre, was largely irrelevant. So, the commune prohibited further car park construction within Bologna. This control extended to developers and companies who, in other cities, are often anxious to include parking provision in any new building. The construction of new car parks was also politically unacceptable because of the negative effects on the immediate vicinity. The only area where the commune was prepared to construct new car parks was on main roads at the extreme edge of the city.

[p. 197]

Stienstra [9] suggested that the winkelerf enabled walking quality to be improved on a shopping street without banning all traffic. The pedestrian has priority, while cars and bicycles enter as `guests'. The approach was therefore quite different from Groningen's sector+pedestrianisation one; theoretically the winkelerf solves the conflict between environmental improvement of a street on the one hand and worsened access to it on the other. However, to succeed, severe speed reductions have to be observed and in Germany as well as the Netherlands many drivers, particularly of mopeds, are insufficiently civilised to do this. And, according to Stienstra, because the winkelerf (unlike the woonerf) had not been canonised with legislation in 1982, enforcement was impossible. So, physical restraint had to be applied: humps in the road, chicanes, brick enclosed flower beds, etc. Dalby & Williamson [2] discussed some of the problems that arose in Delft.

[...]

The Dutch were also pioneers of full pedestrianisation. Gantvoort [4] notes the `Verstedelijkingsnota' or urbanization report of 1977 in which `the government clearly declared that for its part domination of the motor car had ended.' The new objectived became to `restore, preserve and improve quality of life in urban areas, especially in the older residential quarters; design residential areas so...infrastructure does not cause too much annoyance; encourage use of bicycle and moped...improve public transport...stimulate selective use of the motor car.' Pedestrian shopping streets, rather as in Britain, were invariably incorporated in post-war rebuilding, a famous example being in Rotterdam.

[p. 204]

Case Study: Groningen, The Netherlands

[p. 206]

Case Study: Gothenburg, Sweden

[p. 224]

Bibliography

1
Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Lyon, Direction Promotion du Commerce, Service Urbanisme Commercial et Etudes.
Deplacements moyens de transports liés aux achats.
Technical report, Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Lyon, Lyon, France, 1983.

2
E. Dalby and A.E. Williamson.
Pedestrian and traffic management. techniques in Delft: report of a visit made in December 1975.
Technical Report SR257, Crowthorne Transport & Road Research Laboratory, 1977.

3
Jean Frebault and Christiane Dalmais.
Transports en commun et politique urbaine dans l'agglomération Lyonnaise.
Technical report, Agence d'Urbanisme de la Communauté Urbaine de Lyon, Lyon, France, 1988.

4
J.Th. Gantvoort.
Pedestrian planning in the Netherlands.
In World Developments in Pedestrian Planning, Glasgow, UK, July 1982.

5
Kai Lemberg.
Pedestrian streets and other motor vehicle traffic restraints in central Copenhagen.
Technical report, City of Copenhagen, General Planning Department, 1973.

6
Rolf Monheim.
Der Städtische Raum in Frankreich und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Studien zur internationalen Schulbuchforschung Schriftenreihe des Georg-Eckert Instituts, 50:287-305, 1987.

7
Peter W.G. Newman and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy.
Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence.
Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA, 1999.

8
John Roberts.
Quality streets: How traditional urban centres benefit from traffic-calming.
Technical Report 75, Transport and Environmental Studies (TEST), London, UK, May 1988.

9
Sj. Stienstra.
The Winkelerf: improving environment for pedestrians in shopping streets without banning all cars.
In PTRC Summer Annual Meeting. Warwick University, 1982.

10
Syndicat des Transports en Commun de la Région Lyonnaise (SYTRAL).
L'agglomération Lyonnaise et les transports de personnes.
Technical report, SYTRAL, Lyon, France, 1984.

David Pritchard 2007-12-10