2007-04-01 23:16:45 - Radical new ideas on traffic planning being considered in Holland.

For millions of motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, taxi drivers, hauliers and bus passengers the daily trek to the office, school, shops in town and city centres is a hellish experience says a BNP spokesperson. It is not just the stop-start at junctions but the stress, the fear and the anxiety as well as the tangible environmental pollution problems which add to

the daily grind.

A story recently running on the Euro-realist blog of Dr. Richard North, paints a contrasting picture between the perils of driving in a typical British town and the free flowing traffic in the Freisland city of Smallingerland.

The City Council have called in Hans Monderman, a pioneering Dutch road traffic engineer. He has developed innovative designs for roads based on a concept known as "shared space". He claims it improves both efficiency and safety by taking a fresh look at assumptions about road design, vehicle physics, human perception, cognition, and culture.

His idea is that the road space is shared equally by all users - no one has right of way or priority His most famous approach has been labelled "designing for negotiation", which requires the different users to "negotiate" the space they are about to occupy. His designs get road users to focus on looking at one another instead of traffic control devices. Rather than zebra crossings, signs, lights, etc., he strips the furniture from the streets - hence the term "naked streets" - making it easier for users to see and negotiate with one another. His goal is to enhance the conspicuousness and predictability of users, empowering them to cooperate with each another.

In partnership with the Regional Traffic Safety Office for Friesland, an intersection formerly controlled by traffic signals was completely redesigned to form a square with a roundabout in the middle - a "squareabout".

Unlike others, it incorporated Monderman's principles, all intended, as the Council put it, to "transform the spatial quality of the Laweiplein." A thorough baseline study had been carried out and now, three years on, the experiment seems to have been a success.

The Conservative Shadow Transport Minister Owen Paterson seems to have been suitably impressed by the revolutionary ideas, as is our BNP spokesperson.

He said: "Instead of the State laying down the rules, we need to give responsibility back to road users. It's about creating an environment where it just doesn't feel right to drive faster than 20mph."

That is an important lesson that has far wider implications. All too often, regulation has effects opposite to that intended - the so-called "sledgehammer to miss the nut" effect. Mr Monderman's ideas show that there are better ways. This is a lesson that the BNP believes is applicable in many other spheres of town and transport planning.