Tuesday 23 February 2010

Describing things properly

One of my favourite blogs is Human Transit put together by Jarrett Walker. If you are at all interested in urban transport, it should be on your list of bookmarks. It is always a great read.

A recent post about Vancouver made a great point. I go around the place whinging to anyone who will listen (and some who won't) about the benefits of a well designed cycle network away from fast moving traffic. To do that in some Adelaide streets, inevitably a lane will need to be taken away from motorised traffic. In streets like King William Street in the city, that is not going to be a problem at all. The street is easily side enough to accommodate the tram track, a bus lane, a single lane for private cars and a wide cycle lane behind the bus stops.

Often when these measures are discussed though, we talk about taking lanes away. However in the post about Vancouver, Jarrett refers to them as "openings" - "Streets have been closed to cars so that they can be open to masses of people."

It sounds so much better. Installing cycling infrastructure is not "taking" space from motorists, it is opening it up to people.

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