# Shared Space in Ashford



## John the Monkey (2 Dec 2008)

...or the end of the world as we know it, if you read the Times.

http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/12/01/quieting-the-ring-road-shared-space-hits-it-big-in-ashford/


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## Twenty Inch (3 Dec 2008)

They got their photos the wrong way round.

It looks nice, but it will last about 2 weeks before 4x4 drivers and German Machtwagen owners just start barging their way around. The English psyche is too selfish and ignorant for nice fluffy Scandawegian space-sharing schemes.


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## Will1985 (3 Dec 2008)

There will be chaos - well there has been for years already when we've been down to visit extended family there. The chavs (and there are a lot) will treat is as a racetrack.

Car drivers will clearly force their way. After an accident someone is bound to say that they interpreted another's facial expression as an invitation to move! 

The ringroad was fine for the town in the 60s, but the later growth was unprecedented. IIRC, my grandfather had something to do with the design as a council roads planning officer.


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## Twenty Inch (3 Dec 2008)

It's a hardware fix for a fleshware problem. We need to educate people about behaving properly to each other in public, then we can do away with barriers and road markings.


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## BentMikey (3 Dec 2008)

That's never going to happen, because the nature of cars pushes our buttons in such a way that most people don't behave as well towards others as they would outside of the car.

I think it's a grand idea, and I'm interested in how the experiment works. I think it will too, going by elsewhere.


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## John the Monkey (4 Dec 2008)

I'd tend towards Will's take, myself - my personal feeliing is that the British motorist is too selfish, and too convinced of the cars superiority to take the claims of other road users on the shared space seriously. With that said, however, the research so far seems to say I'm wrong in that prejudice, and I hope that's the case, as the alternative seems to be an increasingly segregated transport system, focussed on allowing the motor vehicle to hurtle through towns at 10 mph over the limit.

There's another article on Vanderbilt's site describing a place in the states that cut down all the trees lining one particular road because they were dangerous to motorists exceeding the speed limit. (No one ever thought that it might be an idea to try and get them to obey the traffic law, it seems).


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## Twenty Inch (4 Dec 2008)

BentMikey said:


> That's never going to happen, because the nature of cars pushes our buttons in such a way that most people don't behave as well towards others as they would outside of the car.



Not everywhere, they don't. Only in places where there's an overriding public discourse of selfishness, instant gratification, and I'm-all-right-Jack. In my experience, that's the UK and the USA, although Ireland is fast catching up, sadly.



> I think it's a grand idea, and I'm interested in how the experiment works. I think it will too, going by elsewhere.



I think it's a great idea too, in societies where the thinking and behaviours are already in place to support it - Scandinavia and Holland have been mentioned. This initiative would work well in Spanish cities too. My point is that for this to work here, we'll need to change people's attitudes to sharing public space, to interacting with strangers and other vulnerable road users, to how they imagine themselves in public. If we want this to work now, we should have started 20 years ago. In those countries mentioned above, people behave more politely and with more grace to each other, whatever the street furniture. But not in England. And especially not in the South East. 

However, I am willing to try it out, and as I live not far from Ashford, I'm happy to take a drive down there in a few months and see how it's progressing. I'll report back.


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## Steve Austin (4 Dec 2008)

I walked across this shared space twice today. 

Hate to pop all the woeful balloons that folk are blowing up, but it was fine. cars gave way to me both times.
How about folk look for the positive in this development rather than the negative? Its a really good idea, that give everyone space to share. Its a bloody good idea, and its working!


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## Twenty Inch (4 Dec 2008)

Steve Austin said:


> I walked across this shared space twice today.
> 
> Hate to pop all the woeful balloons that folk are blowing up, but it was fine. cars gave way to me both times.
> How about folk look for the positive in this development rather than the negative? Its a really good idea, that give everyone space to share. Its a bloody good idea, and its working!



I'd love to be proved wrong, honestly. My opinion of brits is just too low though (after living in Spain, Ireland, Germany and Russia).


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## jonesy (4 Dec 2008)

Twenty Inch said:


> I'd love to be proved wrong, honestly. My opinion of brits is just too low though (after living in Spain, Ireland, Germany and Russia).



It isn't as if this is the first time any kind of 'shared space' idea has been tried here. There are plenty of places, particularly in older, pre- road safety audit, streets, as well as places like supermarket carparks, where vehicles and people mix and everyone expects to take more care than they do when they've got clearly defined priorities and segregation. I'd expect it to work as well here as anywhere else.


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## Twenty Inch (5 Dec 2008)

Again, I disagree. My (unscientific, unsupported) experience is that supermarket car parks are becoming more like streets, rather than vice-versa, with kids in hatchback and twunts in 4x4s expecting everyone to get out of their way, able-bodied people parking in disabled bays, and over-revving and heavy braking now the norm. In any event, a supermarket visit is quite clearly bounded in space and time, and therefore the change in behaviour necessary is limited. Your average Really Important And Stressed Driver is liable to find car-park style driving too much on a limitless, unbounded basis.

Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, I just think that UK society is too fragmented, too selfish and too individualistic for this to work here. In other, kinder, more homogeneous and polite societies, yes, here, no.


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## MartinC (5 Dec 2008)

Twenty Inch said:


> Again, I disagree. My (unscientific, unsupported) experience is that supermarket car parks are becoming more like streets, rather than vice-versa, with kids in hatchback and twunts in 4x4s expecting everyone to get out of their way, able-bodied people parking in disabled bays, and over-revving and heavy braking now the norm. In any event, a supermarket visit is quite clearly bounded in space and time, and therefore the change in behaviour necessary is limited. Your average Really Important And Stressed Driver is liable to find car-park style driving too much on a limitless, unbounded basis.
> 
> Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, I just think that UK society is too fragmented, too selfish and too individualistic for this to work here. In other, kinder, more homogeneous and polite societies, yes, here, no.



Unfortunately I agree. I'd love to be proved wrong and it's clearly going to be interesting to see what happens. One the things that will be crucial is how the authorities and the insurance companies deal with any incidents that happen. They need to make a mental leap too.


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## dellzeqq (5 Dec 2008)

John the Monkey said:


> There's another article on Vanderbilt's site describing a place in the states that cut down all the trees lining one particular road because they were dangerous to motorists exceeding the speed limit. (No one ever thought that it might be an idea to try and get them to obey the traffic law, it seems).



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1425829.stm


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## CotterPin (5 Dec 2008)

Twenty Inch said:


> Again, I disagree. My (unscientific, unsupported) experience is that supermarket car parks are becoming more like streets, rather than vice-versa, with kids in hatchback and twunts in 4x4s expecting everyone to get out of their way, able-bodied people parking in disabled bays, and over-revving and heavy braking now the norm. In any event, a supermarket visit is quite clearly bounded in space and time, and therefore the change in behaviour necessary is limited. Your average Really Important And Stressed Driver is liable to find car-park style driving too much on a limitless, unbounded basis.
> 
> Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, I just think that UK society is too fragmented, too selfish and too individualistic for this to work here. In other, kinder, more homogeneous and polite societies, yes, here, no.



Has there been any research done on injuries and fatalities in supermarket carparks? 

I have to say I am not as convinced it is as bad as you make out,Twenty Inch, in the same way that I am not convinced the roads, as they currently are, are as bad as they sometimes appear. For every person who passes you too close on the road or every driver in a supermarket carpark who revs their engine there are hundreds of others who either cause no trouble at all or go out of their way to be courteous to others.


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## snorri (5 Dec 2008)

dellzeqq said:


> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1425829.stm


dated July 2001.

There are still lots of tree lined routes on mainland Europe, so I think we can take it they have seen the light since this report was filed.


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## John the Monkey (5 Dec 2008)

This is the piece I was thinking of earlier;

http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/10/21/getting-it-wrong-in-montogomery-county/



> But then, of course, if someone crashes and kills a pedestrian or another driver, it’s an “accident,” it’s down to driver behavior; if they smash into a tree, it’s deemed poor traffic safety engineering.



And some other trees;

http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/12/05/spare-the-tree-cut-down-the-litigation/



> the tree, which had lasted virtually the entire history of automobile-dom, was viewed as a traffic hazard. Being generally of the mind that traffic _is_ the hazard, I always view these claims with suspicion. This was a street marked for 25 mph. Assuming you were driving the proper speed and paying attention, how do you a.) strike something as large and obvious as a tree and b.) roll over your vehicle?



http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/08/17/natural-traffic-calming/



> There’s absolutely no reason residential streets, like the one pictured above, shouldn’t have trees in the middle of the road. Apart from the aesthetic contribution, they’re great natural traffic calming devices. Yes, you have to slow down to navigate around them, yes they reduce the “sight distance” of whatever lays beyond (hence you have to slow down), and yes they are a crash “hazard” — if you act in a hazardous way.


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## DaveP (9 Dec 2008)

Steve Austin said:


> I walked across this shared space twice today.
> 
> Hate to pop all the woeful balloons that folk are blowing up, but it was fine. cars gave way to me both times.
> How about folk look for the positive in this development rather than the negative? Its a really good idea, that give everyone space to share. Its a bloody good idea, and its working!



Steve,

I "share" this space on a daily basis, and to be honest (as a driver) I find it a complete nightmare to negotiate when the traffic builds up aka London commuters all come home (and at weekends).

The “old” system, whilst being a little chaotic at times seems in comparison to have far fewer delays than now.

For me, the general concept of a “shared space” in the context of Ashford was not so much to evolve a lofty ideal, but to remove items such as the pedestrian access via the subway thereby allowing more public spaces to be viewed by CCTV.

Cynical maybe, but one cannot ignore this aspect of our daily lives.


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## BentMikey (10 Dec 2008)

I think that's *exactly* what it's supposed to be about - making it more liveable and usable for those not in cars, slowing the cars down, and an overall increase in safety.


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## DaveP (10 Dec 2008)

BentMikey said:


> I think that's *exactly* what it's supposed to be about - making it more liveable and usable for those not in cars, slowing the cars down, and an overall increase in safety.



BM,

Don’t get me wrong on this, I am all for making a place more "livable", but in the case of Ashford, what used to be somewhere that was fairly accessible both by car and pedestrian (subways etc) means, has now turned into somewhere where drivers tend to avoid if they can, while this may appeal to some fraternities, it leaves a very real problem for those who survive on footfall through their doors to spend money especially as the outlet centre is so close. Modern planning is a conundrum, but I honestly think that applying a "standard model" to a town like Ashford, or any other town for that matter, is wrong, standard models start with a broad set of assumptions, assumptions that may not apply to a town like Ashford which has a long history as a market town. 

I would rather have the "old" system back, and people using the town centre for it's "traditional" use, as opposed to the mess we have now...


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## Steve Austin (11 Dec 2008)

Dave. there has always been a problem in Ashford in that the town centre is surrounded by a four lane wide dual carriageway. So the only way to cross this racetrack was to, stand and wait for the traffic lights, which are all geared for the cars, so you could stnad and wait for several minutes for a gap in the traffic. This is still the case, use the crossing at the bottom of the memorial gardens if you don't believe me.
I think the point of this shared space is to make it more people friendly. that is friendly to all users. If you think car drivers will have to drive a bit slower, I don't really have much empathy for that view, as the current shared space has given me and many others the right to walk across a road without waiting for all the cars to trundle past.


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## snorri (11 Dec 2008)

DaveP said:


> I would rather have the "old" system back, and people using the town centre for it's "traditional" use, as opposed to the mess we have now...



Yes,me too, happy memories. When most people walked to the town centre did their shopping and walked home, barely a car in sight, easy and safe to cross the road where and when you felt like it.


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## DaveP (12 Dec 2008)

Steve Austin said:


> Dave. there has always been a problem in Ashford in that the town centre is surrounded by a four lane wide dual carriageway. This is still the case, use the crossing at the bottom of the memorial gardens if you don't believe me.
> I think the point of this shared space is to make it more people friendly. that is friendly to all users.




Steve,

I think that you have hit the nail on the head here in that Ashford has, and to some respects always will have problems with access.

I honestly think that the hotchpotch of “cunning plans” (the “Bedouin tent” then the expansion of the shopping centre) combined with Ashford being touted as a “strategic” point in the development of Eurostar, then being dropped, then “holding on” to the services ends in a mess not only in real terms, but also for the entire “perception” of what Ashford “is” or is “trying” to be.

I seem to have wondered off the topic a bit here but my general point about shared space is great, all for it, but what “model” works in a town is some far flung part of Europe, or is the current “vogue” or panacea of town planners today is not an “instant fix”.

While shared space tends to rely upon the differentiation between the fine meshed slow network and the larger meshed fast network in the case of Ashford the concept seems to have been applied with fingers crossed and hope rather than all of the boxes being ticked prior to the implementation of the concept.

Ashford is starting to be a nightmare as layer upon layer of “bright ideas” are applied.

My fingers ache now……


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## Tony (23 Dec 2008)

dellzeqq said:


> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1425829.stm



Yup, France.
Because the Germans like to march in the shade.


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## Origamist (6 Feb 2010)

Hamilton-Baillie on ‘Shared Space’ in Ashford:

http://www.howwedrive.com/2010/01/27/hamilton-baillie-on-shared-space-in-ashford/


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## Willo (8 Feb 2010)

I live in Ashford so use the shared space a fair bit, and in principle am supportive of the concept. However, I'm not quite sure it's had the major impact that people claim or intended. In that regard, I relate to much of davep's post above.

My observations are that folk still cross at the lights by the new shopping centre or the zebra crossings. The advantage is that the traffic is that bit slower so people can walk across easier between cars but I seldom see significant numbers of pedestrians in that area of town (maybe it will be when further development takes place that the full benefits will kick in). 

Overall, taking the whole of the new 2-way ring road scheme, I'm not overly impressed that life is better as a pedestrian (the new lights take an absolute age to allow people to cross the road). As a cyclist I live equidistant in terms of which way I go around the town and prefer to brave it and cycle the 'normal' section of the ring road rather than endure the bumps and vibrations of the shared space's paving, which I think is a shame and an opportunity missed. A friend of my wife who is blind has also said that the input of visually impaired representations has been ignored. So whilst a positive step in terms of intentions, I'm not convinced it has been properly thought through and implemented. 

Maybe it would need to be extended all the way round to have more impact, but in any case crossing the road is generally easy when the traffic is gnarled up most of the time anyway.

It looks okay, the concept is sound, but picking 'off the shelf' concepts and dropping them in without properly considering the particular context of a location means the benefits intended are not realised. I hope in the long term that this is not the case with Ashford and I really want to be convinced. However, I am not sure that we've got the return on the investment yet.


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## sheddy (10 Feb 2010)

Supermarket Car Park Experiment - see how motons behave around you when -
1. When pushing a loaded trolley across their path
2. When not pushing a loaded trolley across their path
See the difference ?


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## dellzeqq (10 Feb 2010)

sheddy said:


> Supermarket Car Park Experiment - see how motons behave around you when -
> 1. When pushing a loaded trolley across their path
> 2. When not pushing a loaded trolley across their path
> See the difference ?


YES absolutely. I'm so pleased you wrote that. Sometimes I ride the Brompton through the Waitrose car park and think 'this is the most dangerous thing I've done all week.


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