Reimagining Shared (Space) Street Design: Segregating to Better Integrate?

EasyChair Preprint 9527

Abstract

The shared space concept proposes to reduce traffic control to integrate road users. Yet, defining boundaries to create a pedestrian safe zone is particularly relevant for a successful implementation. Therefore, to determine if road users also expect a protective barrier delimiting the safe zone, this paper presents part of the results of an online survey that evaluated the preferences of pedestrians and cyclists. A total of 408 participants completed the survey and ranked the alternatives (i.e. none, bollards, bushes, and stones) according to their preferences. Approaches suitable for ranking data were then applied to further understand the results, which indicated that only providing a safe zone with visual separation is not necessarily preferred when compared to the provision of additional physical barriers. Both pedestrians and cyclists prefer bushes over the presented alternatives. As bushes objectively provide less physical protection than bollards and stones, it can be assumed that the sense of segregation, rather than the physical protection itself, should be considered in shared space design. By challenging the concept of user integration, this paper suggests reinterpreting the shared space design to combine physical barriers in an attempt to better accommodate vulnerable road users.

Keyphrases: Safe Zone, Streetscape, online survey, urban street, visual preference

@booklet{EasyChair:9527,
  author    = {Mariana Batista and Frauke Luise Berghoefer and Bernhard Friedrich},
  title     = {Reimagining Shared (Space) Street Design: Segregating to Better Integrate?},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 9527},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}