Equality Streets

Dead red time and space

Martin Cassini — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:48:32 +0000

Scenes like this are repeated ad infinitum up and down the land.

Social protocol trumps regulation

Martin Cassini — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:25:38 +0000

In his column in today’s Guardian, Oliver Burkeman discusses “norm violations”, e.g. queue jumping. It helps explain why on the roads, equality and self-control are safer and more efficient than priority and signal control. As I often say, you’d cause a riot if you jumped a cashpoint queue, yet on the road, we accept such anti-social behaviour without question. Ben Hamilton-Baillie also speaks of the social protocols that ensure we are civil to each other when we’re in a public space designed for human interaction rather than a regulated space designed for control and movement of traffic.

Hoggart on HS2

Martin Cassini — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:25:34 +0000

A Commons committee says the £33bn we’re to spend on high-speed rail will be a waste of money. The transport secretary says that’s nonsense; we have to “compete” with other countries. But I’m just back from Manchester where a fast Pendolino train arrived on time, but where connections on old, unreliable trains waited for onward journeys. We could link Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Sunderland and Newcastle with fast, clean, comfortable trains for a fraction of the cost of HS2, and it would do far more for the economy. But I suppose it would neither impress nor interest foreigners. From Simon Hoggart’s week, Guardian 17 May 2013

Congestion charging + HS2 = public waste x 2

Martin Cassini — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:02:25 +0000

What does HS2 have in common with the congestion charge? It will cost the earth, and it is being imposed before large-scale traffic system reform has even been tried. Cars are uniquely convenient, allowing you to go door-to-door at times of your choosing, and they are getting greener all the time. Poynton shows that sociable design enabling self-control cuts congestion and makes roads safe. Despite the evidence, traffic authorities continue to throw good money after bad on systems of counterproductive control, and government backs infrastructure projects that do nothing for outlying regions or the man in the street.

On the roads, self-interest = mutual interest

Martin Cassini — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:41:58 +0000

In banking and consumer affairs, regulation may be necessary, because self-interest is driven by profit. On the roads, regulation is counterproductive. Why? Because self-interest = the common interest. My interest in not hitting you mirrors your interest in not hitting me. My rulebook would consist of just two rules. Drive on the left, and take it more or less in turns.

“In praise of …” Guardian on Poynton

Martin Cassini — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:22:03 +0000

A few years ago, the Guardian ran an editorial against me in praise of traffic lights. Are they beginning to see the light? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/09/in-praise-of-poynton-intersection

“ … the doubters have been confounded” – this links to a piece in a local paper which quotes me – presumably they took it from YouTube, inserting their own punctuation.

Minister on the road to nowhere

Martin Cassini — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:55:21 +0000

On 8 May 2013, before the start of a conference organised by PACTS (government road safety advisory council) for the UN’s Decade of Action, I met transport minister, Patrick McLoughlin. What did he think of Poynton? He looked blank. I briefed him, but still he looked blank. In his later “keynote” address, he blamed dangerous drivers, especially texters, as if they were exclusively responsible for “accidents”. He failed to attach any blame to the traffic control system which makes roads dangerous in the first place, and his ”solutions” were all about enforcement. Not a word about traffic system reform or designing roads for safety. Depressing.

Buffoonery in high places

Martin Cassini — Tue, 07 May 2013 08:26:08 +0000

The UK’s leading self-publicist – the current London mayor – has appointed as his cycling “czar” someone who knows my work (he has quoted it uncredited, in at least one article). So he should know better, but not only does Andrew Gilligan support segregation between cyclists and other road-users, he promotes additional low-level traffic lights for cyclists (and for such learned advice he “earns” £38,000 for for 2 days’ work a week). I’ve often suspected an unholy alliance between policymakers and traffic control manufacturers. Is this further evidence? Article here.

Segregation misses the beauty of Equality Streets, which enables road-users to merge in a civilised mix instead of making them seethe with stress as they compete for gaps and green time. The system promoted by Gilligan is in operation at Bow roundabout: plagued by dire congestion as traffic is held for long spells at red while green shows for non-existent cyclists (see inadequate photo). Great for air quality, fuel use and heart rates (not)!

As this earlier, uncritical Standard article states, the number of cyclists killed or hurt on London’s roads went up last year. “It’s difficult to know why,” says Gilligan, “though we do know it’s largely a result of bad junctions and contact with heavy lorries.” Along with TfL chief, Peter Hendy, Gilligan wants stiffer penalties for motorists who kill cyclists.

The roads (mis)managed by these overpaid public sector buffoons are designed for danger and inequality. As usual, they see only symptoms, never causes. As long as they fail to treat the underlying cause of our problems on the road, untold harm and injustice will continue to characterise their regimes.

20mph again

Martin Cassini — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:08:35 +0000

20mph zones are spreading fast, according to another email received from the pressure group, 20 is Plenty for Us. Everyone wants safer streets, but are blanket 20mph zones the answer? I don’t think so. For one thing, they open up fresh avenues of enforcement, extending state control over our daily lives and actions. And they express a misreading of human psychology. Our streets will only be genuinely safe when we are taught to drive according to social context, not coerced into driving by numbers. The transformation of a dangerous junction in Poynton, Cheshire, shows that intelligent design, not speed limits, produces the desired results: gentle speeds, civilised interaction, deference to vulnerable road-users. Link to video, Poynton Regenerated, here (or search Poynton in YouTube).

“Obnoxious autocrats”

Martin Cassini — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:39:23 +0000

From Alan Rusbridger’s Guardian interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt: He decided against exploiting facial recognition, which he sees as wide open to abuse, and warns of the dangers of combining such technology with London-style traffic cameras. “You could imagine aggressive, obnoxious autocrats saying, ‘We need this to keep our people under control’, and once those things are in place, they are very hard to turn off.” Who installed 1800 new sets of traffic lights to London streets? Ken Livingstone. Who introduced the punitive, premature congestion charge (premature because it was imposed before natural flow/Equality Streets had been tried) with its rampant surveillance system? Livingstone. Who keeps it in operation and does nothing to remove the yoke of control over our freedom of movement? Boris Johnson