I watched for an hour while cars, trucks and pedestrians shared this space quietly... with civility! Little honking, no aggressive driving, no traffic cop. Why? Because the light was out.

No one had to speed up and honk to make the green light on time; no one honked or changed lanes to take advantage of the narrow window of time the light granted them. Everyone came to a stop, looked around (wondering why the light was dead, and what they should do), and proceeded slowly thru.

Instead of a line of cars waiting for the light to change, alternate sides vying with each other for the few precious moments allowing them the right to pass thru... no one had to wait very long. And in fact the alternate sides traded back and forth, almost at a one-to-one ratio. No one had to wait, so no one got stuck in a line, so no one sped up, so no one honked, so there was no need for aggressive driving! Even pedestrians got their due.

Someone should examine this closely. Reminds me of similarities to Hans Monderman and Shared Spaces.

The following obituary was contributed by Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an urban designer based in Bristol, England. 

Hans Monderman, the pioneering Dutch traffic engineer, died on Monday 7th January near his home close to Drachten in Friesland, aged 63. As one of the most innovative and challenging of thinkers and practitioners in his field, he will be widely mourned by the many professionals, politicians, academics and ordinary people from across the world who admired his radical and challenging approach to bringing simplicity and humanity to the design of streets and public spaces.

Hans Monderman trained as a civil engineer, and as a driving instructor before studying traffic engineering and accident investigation. Combining an understanding of how roads were built as well as how they were understood by drivers prompted his interest in psychology and social behaviour. In the 1980s he was appointed as head of road safety for the Province of Friesland, a role that allowed him to question many long-standing assumptions. Always doubtful about the conventional traffic engineering vocabulary of signs, markings, barriers, bumps and chicanes, he began to explore the potential for improving safety and the quality of public life through encouraging simple human interaction and negotiation amongst road users. During his career with municipalities across northern Holland he initiated over a hundred schemes that established a new direction for reconciling the relationship between people, places and traffic.

Convinced that humans possessed skills in negotiating and interaction that were being suppressed by conventional rules and regulations, Monderman’s more recent work began to explore the potential for simplicity and integration between engineering and urban design. More complex schemes, such as the Laweiplein in Drachten and the remodelling of the High Street in Haren near Groningen  drew his work to the attention of a worldwide audience. He is most associated with the removal of signs, signals and road clutter, but it is the recognition of human intelligence and complexity, and the importance of place for which he will be best remembered.

In 2007 his work was recognized through the World Technology award and an honorary PhD in traffic planning. But it is as an inspirational speaker, a teacher, and a highly practical innovator that Hans Monderman will be best remembered by those keen to promote simple human values and civility in the public realm.

Johannes (Hans) Iebe Monderman, born November 19th in Leeuwarden, died in Drachten on January 7th. He is survived by his wife Tineke and two sons, Leonard and Johan.

New Mobility Agenda's Eric Britton sends along sad news that Hans Monderman, the Dutch traffic engineer renowned for his innovative "shared space" plans emphasizing human interaction and negotiation over blind obedience to mechanical traffic control devices, died yesterday. He was a rare and radical traffic engineer who believed that the art and science of his profession could be used not just to facilitate the movement of motor vehicles but to build community and enhance human relationships. Britton writes:

I learned this morning of the sad news that our dear friend and colleague Hans Monderman has passed away. It is a great loss.

Hans was an exceptionally creative, energetic and original thinker and doer, right up the middle of the New Mobility Agenda at its best. His specialty was not to write lots of fat reports or go to conferences, but rather to get out onto the street and show people and policy makers what can be done if we apply our minds to it.

His approach has been called "Designing for Negotiation", which he in his usual modesty admitted works better in some places than others. At busy urban intersections with slow traffic, he found that it is often safer and more effective to get road users to focus on looking at one another instead of traffic control devices.

I had the opportunity to meet Monderman and see some of his work in Drachten and Groningen during a trip to the Netherlands in October 2006. In addition to being a major innovator, Hans was an incredibly nice guy, open and inviting. As much as he will be missed, I have no doubt that his ideas about traffic engineering and urban design will live on and come to be seen not as radical, but state-of-the-art, in cities around the world.

Drachten's busiest intersection before Hans Monderman.

Drachten's busiest intersection after Hans Monderman.

 More on Hans Monderman:

• Wired Magazine: No street signs. No crosswalks. No accidents. Surprise: Making driving seem more dangerous could make it safer.
• New York Times: A path to road safety with no signposts.
• Streetsblog: German town chooses human interaction over traffic signals.
  

Monderman Photo: Aaron Naparstek, Drachten before photo courtesy of Ben Hamilton-Baillie, Drachten after photo Ben Behnke, Spiegel.

While battles rage here in New York City over signs and markings and the segregation of the public right-of-way for different types of users, yet another Northern European town is ditching its traffic control devices altogether. Spiegel reports that as of September 12, the German town of Bohmte, will be all "shared space." Rather than being governed by impersonal traffic signals, motorists, pedestrians and cyclists will have to make eye contact to ensure that they don't crash into each other.

The idea of a town with no road signs conjures up ideas of Italian-style traffic mayhem, with cars whizzing everywhere and nervous pedestrians diving for cover. But for some traffic experts, such chaos is to be embraced -- or, as the title of a recent traffic conference in Frankfurt put it, "unsafe is safe."

Now the town of Bohmte in the German state of Lower Saxony is putting its money where its motor mouth is -- it's getting rid of its road signs in a bid to cut accidents.

The work to remove the road signs will begin Wednesday in the town of 13,500 inhabitants. Sidewalks will disappear, as will the asphalt, replaced by cobblestones. Cycle lanes and sidewalks will be distinguished from the road only by color. The town is putting up half of the project's €2.35-million costs itself, with the EU and other sources of funding supplying the other half.

The idea is based on the European Union-supported "Shared Space" concept of traffic management developed by the Dutch traffic expert Hans Monderman. According to the concept, road users have to negotiate their behavior with each other, rather than have it prescribed by rules -- the idea being that people will pay more attention to what other road users are doing and hence cause fewer accidents.

Drachten, Netherlands intersection before Hans Monderman.

Drachten, Netherlands intersection after Hans Monderman.

Drachten drivers and cyclists making eye contact, sharing space and governing themselves.

• Drachten before photo courtesy of Ben Hamilton-Baillie
• Drachten after photo Ben Behnke, Spiegel
• Hans Monderman and Drachten intersection photos, Aaron Naparstek, Drachten, October 2, 2006.