It is not easy to fix the historical mistake to let cars dominate public space. But #Catharijnesingel (Utrecht) shows that cities can heal from the inflicted wounds.
Radical change is possible. But it takes strong leadership.
Design for the city you want to be.
Not for the traffic you have (or that modelers 'predict')
Connect the dots:
😱 Danish🇩🇰 kids cycle less far (-25%), less often (-32%) in last 10 years
🚙 Proportion of kids cycling to school dropped 30%. Car journeys doubled/tripled
🤸♀️ Only 26% gets enough physical exercise
⛑ Helmets became the norm
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.”
~E.F. Schumacher
A developing collection 🧵...
(pics from 'A short history of innovation' by @efesce)
Traffic violence represents the largest threat to life and limb that most people in contemporary, car-based society experience on a daily basis in public space.
With this magnitude of violence and relatively limited attention it receives, we seem to have collectively accepted it as a tolerable price for our car-based society.
Cars have taken over our public space. That APPROPRIATION happens in stealth. Government responses to it seem a-political and technocratic. This hides a 1-directional process that should be highly politicised.
Case: BLOKKENWEG (Ede 🇳🇱)
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The BLOKKENWEG parallels the train tracks between Utrecht (to the west) and Arnhem (to the east).
It links directly to an important railway crossing for traveling between Ede-South and Ede center. The street and tracks are separated by public allotments since the 1980s.
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Built in the 1920s, it was part of a small garden-city district for workers of the ENKA factory. The houses, meant for white-collar workers, were relatively large. Originally, the street was a gravel road with a dedicated walking path.