Thread by @cosaingalway

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that there are two distinct cultures: Irish and European.

An Irish family travels to a European city on an informal 'cultural exchange', on this occasion in the form of a house swap with a couple living in an apartment.

It's summer. The streets, and the apartment block, are pleasant and quiet. The Irish visitors love their short walks to the shop. This being a European apartment, there's a communal laundry in the basement. There's a reservation system for using the washing and drying facilities.

Each machine has a number. Residents write their name and apartment number on a timesheet to reserve a slot for doing their personal laundry.

One of the Irish visitors, hypothetically, strolls down to the basement with a bag of dirty clothes to check out the facilities.

On finding the place empty, s/he thinks 'great, I'll just do me smalls now.'

12 minutes later, exactly on the hour, a European resident arrives and is annoyed to find their reserved machine in use. Red-faced, the Irish visitor is obliged to stop the wash and remove the clothes.

Later that day, the Irish visitors go to the park. They travel by public transport. The bus arrives on time. It's clean and modern. Nobody on the bus is chatting, but the journey is swift and efficient. The Irish visitors love watching all the bikes as they whizz by.

The park is really pleasant. It's not overly 'tidy' and artificial, but it is generally clean. There are families walking, cycling, playing and relaxing. Nobody is chucking rubbish, piling up litter around the dustbins, boozing or bellowing.

'It's so civilised,' the Irish visitors keep telling each other. 'Everything works. If only these Europeans could relax a bit more, and didn't have silly rules for every little thing.'

Meanwhile, in Galway, the Europeans are having a fabulous holiday, hypothetically. They've been to Connemara, the Burren, even Athenry. They've been in all the recommended bars and revelled in the arts culture. They've sent #IrishTrafficJam postcards to their friends back home.

Mama and Papa tell their children about how they once thought of living in County Galway, after a long summer holiday. They were going to sell art and teach yoga, maybe even keep chickens and goats.

'It's so relaxed here,' they keep saying. 'But #GalwayTraffic is unbearable.'

They travel to Dublin by train on their last day. When they enter the carriage someone else is sitting in their reserved seats. Nobody they ask knows how the reservation system works. The train leaves late.

'Aren't there any rules?' the Europeans wonder.

irishmirror.ie/news/irish-new…

Flashback to the cycling utopia of the Netherlands, well over a decade ago.

Hans Monderman (1945-2008) says: "Who has the right of way? I don't care. People here have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves, use their own brains."

What, no rules?
pps.org/article/hans-m…

"Public spaces are made less civilised and less safe by industrialised attempts to control human behaviour. [...] Hans Monderman fought against this culture."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Monderman's protégé Ben Hamilton-Baillie, who died at the age of 63 in 2019, developed and implemented these ideas in the UK. Hamilton-Baillie coined the term #SharedSpace, and has even argued that seatbelts should be banned from use in urban areas, to make drivers more careful.

“It’s about redefining the urban city streets. But it’s important to understand that this model is not cutting the car out of the city. It’s about re-introducing civility between road users: the idea is not to segregate but to learn to share.”

irishtimes.com/life-and-style…

Hamilton-Baillie drew a distinction between highways and the public realm. Highways are, supposedly, State controlled and tightly regulated. The public realm does not operate according to formal rules; interactions between people are based on complex social/cultural protocols.

Hamilton-Baillie insisted that Irish people, and therefore Irish drivers, were no different to any others. “In every country we’ve worked, the authorities claim that their drivers are the exception, averse to rules and need to be policed by road signs & strict traffic controls.”

“Human social behaviour is the same” across cultures, the late @benhbaillie said. “#SharedSpace builds on that wonderful civility and those social gestures with which humans are blessed.”

Via @paytonchung @StreetsblogUSA, 3rd July 2014.

usa.streetsblog.org/2014/07/03/tal…

If that is the case, then Irish (driver) behaviour in public spaces is more or less the same as it is everywhere else.

And if civility and culture are the critical factors, then State control and governmental regulation of the public realm is futile.

So it seems, anyway. 👇

The life's work of the enlightened urban planner, therefore, is apparently to protect us from "industrialised attempts to control human behaviour".

A large industry has grown up around "road safety" and "traffic management". Many people earn a living from designing, manufacturing, installing or even just recommending lines and signs for roads. Others make careers in roads policing or traffic engineering. How much is wasted?

To quote Monderman again, "Who has the right of way? I don't care. People have to find their own way, negotiate for themselves."

On many occasions @cosaingalway has attempted to "negotiate" with both law enforcers and drivers. A frequent response is a variant of "I don't care."

So what's an urbanist, #ActiveTravel advocate or road safety campaigner to do? The existing road designs don't work. The lines & signs don't work. Neither does the sporadic, half-hearted enforcement.

Questioning all this sometimes looks like nitpicking.

If human behaviour is the same across cultures, as Hamilton-Baillie claimed, then the uncivilised traffic environment in #Galway is hardly unique. What exactly must we do to attain the "wonderful civility" he envisioned? How do we create a "public realm" in a place like this? 👇