The following is a dramatization of actual events. Actual dialog and concepts presented have been compressed and highlighted for loggification purposes:
So I’m sitting there at the sushi bar with Portland’s Consul General from Japan, asking him for advice on my upcoming fellowship study (which isn’t easy to do in Japanese – especially as the sake starts to take effect).
“So – the Architectural Foundation of Oregon has given you a grant to go to my country to study… what exactly?” he asks.
“Urban Design issues” I tell him. “I’m fascinated by all the activity that takes place in the pedestrian zones along street edges in Japan. The built environment seems so chaotic, no one seems to be following any rules, and yet it all works so beautifully. I really want to study this.”
The Consul General, an urbane, westernized diplomat to his toes, pauses for a second, sake cup halfway to his lips. “BAKA!!” (you idiot!) he exclaims, slaming the table and almost upsetting the sake. “My country has nothing to teach the West about urban design! We can only learn from you! Go to Europe!” He then launches into a monlogue about how much he hates walking on the street in Tokyo.
Hmmm. At this moment I have the realization — it’s going to be even more difficult than I thought. Before I can learn from my hosts, I may have to convince them they have something worth studying.
And yet – despite the GC’s extolling the “order” of European streets — the latest, hotest transportation design theory coming out of Europe is “shared space”, the concept of creating roadway anarchy – no directions, no grade separations, no signalized interstections – to promote harmonious use of transportation infrastructure. Can you imagine anything more threatening to a classically trained traffic engineer?
“Who has the right of way? I don’t care. People have to find their own way, negotiatie for themselves, use their own brains” says Hans Monderman, an avante garde Dutch traffic engineer (not at the sushi bar with us, but talking w/a NYT reporter earlier this year).
As some of you know, selected towns in Europe have actually done it – ripped out all their traffic signage, their traffic lights and their sidewalks – and found that it works great. An intersection in the Dutch town of Drachten, reconfigured by Mr. Monderman, handles 20,000 cars a day without signage, traffic lights or sidewalks.
But Japanese urban design (or lack thereof) and streetscape environment goes far beyond this. The most common word used by Westerners to describe it is “chaos”. The most common reaction: paralysis due to total sensory overload. Do Japanese streets work in spite of it? or because of it?
How different is Portland with it’s minutely detailed design review directives for buildings (this architect knows full well), its heavily regulated streets and it’s draconian laws against any type of two or three dimensional information display! Portland’s goal is to create an urban environment where human activity can flourish and transportation via all modes is encouraged. But if that is the case – how much better the “chaos” of urban Japan accomplishes this than does Portland!
Bike/ped/transit splits in the cities I will be visiting (some no bigger than Portland) must be 80% or more. Shop densities and sales volumes put NW 23rd Ave. to shame.
We have certainly made immense progress in turning Portland into a liveable 24 hour city, but I think most would acknowledge we still have a long way to go. Have we reached a plateau, or even a state of diminishing returns where more and more design and traffic regulation is bringing about less and less desirable change and increased vitality?
All questions I am looking to – not answer, but to think more about during my travels in Japan. Please get me any ideas, questions, hot spots, etc.
you may have for my study. And stand by for future postings from the land of the rising sun. I leave next Monday for seven(!) weeks.
12 responses to “Our Streetscape Future: Turning Japanese?”
Hi Rick – I you look down you will see a great variety of paving and approaches to guiding the blend or cars, cycles, peds, etc.. Also traffic calming with narrow streets. Your CG may be thinking of public space and parks in Europe as well as the rich architectural fabric that, in much of Japan damaged by fire bombing, is a collection of the mundane and expedient
I don’t know, Rick. Aren’t there already enough wild bicyclists around Portland who would just as soon run you down if you are in their way? To lessen the strictures of traffic law might invite disaster (I bicycle). Bicyclists are perhaps even more vulnerable to collisions than pedestrians since it is hard to slow down a fast moving bicycle. I was nearly run down, onto a concrete sidewalk, one day when some kids whizzed by just as I went out a door. I don’t sense that most bicyclists have a regard for present traffic laws and assume that nobody would dare hit them, since they are vulnerable. A court would not see it that way, I fear.
re Ron’s comment…I think most cyclists are very aware and considerate; its just that some red lights are absurd.
re streetscapes…In Europe I am most familiar with the Leibziger Strasses in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. It runs for a full Km through the heart of Bockenheim, the University district. It is barely one lane wide with narrow sidewalks and while it is open to all modes, few autos dare to compete with the hordes of folks on foot and on bikes. A subway was opened underneath…it was an old single track streetcar line until the 60’s… with stations at either end and midway along.
“Narrow” can be very good, could even be essential, for a great lively street…I think W. Whyte points this out in is study of Lexington Avenue sidewalks in The City.
But mainly you need people. All the housing around the LiepzigerStr. is 5 storey walk ups, so lots of people shop, hang out, etc. on the street.
I’m reminded of the fact that while the Ramblas in Barcelona has trees, good design, etc., that city has twice metro area population of Portland in 1/4 the land area.
Portland can excel in bike travel since our climate is favorable. Any ideas on how biking can be enhanced in cities with freezing, cold winters? Covered bikeways? Converted sewers? Studded tires and chains? What?
I guess some areas do have an alternative: snowmobiles.
I think the idea of order based on the intelligence of the navigator, rather than externally imposed rules is a fascinating, provocative idea. It is well worth exploring.
Of course those of us who think that “planning” and “zoning” are good ideas, and who deplore the recent proposition 37 roll backs, might have to reconsider our desire for externally imposed order in that domain too. (Then again the decisions of capital are not the same as decisions made by drivers and pedestrians… different scale…. regulation might be more justified in the area of siting and building than in the area of physical movement…)
But just in the limited domain of traffic regulation, the idea that channels, lanes, separations and rules make us safer could very well be a seductive illusion, albeit one that is deeply culturally embedded. It would be interesting to test empirically here in the U.S.
Do antilock brakes just make it possible to drive less safely? Do traffic lights just make it easier to ignore pedestrians? Seems self evident that all sorts of technologies and rules insulate us and isolate us from the reality that cars are deadly weapons.
Do separations enable faster movement at a reasonable level of safety? Perhaps. But maybe not.
But how valuable is speed anyway? Transportation economics would probably tell us that fast inexpensive movement is a good thing. Some of us suspect that rapid transportation just devalues place and space, and that if the speed of movement slowed the places people moved through would be more worth being in and more valuable.
Then less transportation would be needed anyway.
Well that gets to the core of the coming collapse of the transportation economy as global oil production begins to decline, and the problem of why and how we built the highways and roads that enabled us to abandon our places of habitation, and whether deconstructing the highways and byways or the rules that govern their use could somehow re-establish the livability of the places they traverse….
Hello, I’m from Portland and I live in Tokyo. I have to agree with your sushi chef. The only thing more difficult than walking the streets is driving them. You have to be really gutsy to drive around Tokyo. Hell, I get nervous just riding in a Taxi. Most people I talk to have their drivers license but don’t drive because it’s so bad to drive.
My brief experience in Indonesia and Italy is that “no rules” means the less intimidating commuter gives way. In the end the pedestrian loses, unless they flood the streets, which means all traffic slows to shuffle. I don’t know about experimenting with chaos, I think people like being safe and isn’t in our best interest to find elegant ways for people to commute instead of everybody having their own plan? As John Cheever said Art is triumph over chaos.
Miles: I’ve heard the idea that a kind of chaos can exist at peace with itself inside a box of order. I see exactly what you’re talking about. Also, I’ve seen what you speak of in terms of devalued place and space. The wealthiest environ of OKC is connected directly to downtown worth a 30 minute drive on a freeway which slices gruesomely through a poorly developed and low-income behemoth of a neighborhood. It cannot be seen from the freeway and there are few exits to it. I’m betting train windows would, if anything, open people’s eyes to the city they’ve abandoned.
Pat and Brekin: It sounds to me that these cities have made the motor vehicle nearly obsolete, if anything. I begin to wonder why people choose to drive to begin with. I seriously do believe that if cars don’t find a way to leave the ground behind, they may have to find a way to leave the market behind. it’s lofty and strange but really, is there any vision of the future that excludes it? Everyone knows in the back of their mind that one day the ground must once again belong to the humble foot. And as far as safety goes, walking is still less dangerous than driving on almost any statistical chart. Every calculation shows that the safest road is the one without cars, not the one without bicycles or walkers. Call me crazy but it looks as if the love affair with the car will be hitting rough patches within the century. I’m glad we’ve already started brainstorming.
Portland can excel in bike travel since our climate is favorable. Any ideas on how biking can be enhanced in cities with freezing, cold winters? Covered bikeways? Converted sewers? Studded tires and chains? What?
I lived in Juneau for about 8 years. Tried some bike commuting in winter but gave it up as it really wasn’t practical.
First, the snowplows go through each early morning and dump all the snow onto the shoulders so you’re forced to ride out in the actual roadway.
Second, the roads can be damn slick. You can actually buy metal studded mountain bike tires but it’s still to dangerous for serious biking, especially with traffic going by.
Third, there are too many dangerous cars on the road in winter and you don’t want to be anywhere near them on a bike. There are all the jokers who don’t bother to put on decent snow tires so they are sliding all over. There are those idiots who only bother to scrape clean a tiny little keyhole size bit of their windshield and then take off driving to work squinting through the ice until their defroster finally clears the window. And they do this while putting on their makeup and drinking coffee. And all this is happening in the dark and often in the fog or blowing snow as well.
Nope, no way you can pay me enough to be out on the roads on a bike on the average winter morning in Juneau. I expect most snowy cities are about the same. Sane people put their bikes on rollers and ride the bus to work. People who like to be outside will either strap on cross country skis or snowshoes. There are actually these high-tech jogging snowshoes that people use to run in and there are such as thing as snowshoe races.
Juneau does have little driveable snow blowers the size of golf carts that they use to clear the sidewalks. What happens is that the big plow trucks go by and dump the snow on the shoulder and then the little sidewalk machines go by and blow snow up even higher on the berm along the side of the road so you have a big berm of snow between the sidewalk and roadbed. Then front loaders come by and load the snow up into dumptrucks which haul it off and dump it off the seawall into the ocean. But unless the particular business you are walking by has put salt out to melt the ice, the sidewalks are just too slick for biking. They are often almost too slick for walking and people put these chain grippers on their boots to avoid falling.
I love tokyo, its an urban paradise. I spent two months there a few years ago and just wondered the streets. Everything is built out concentrically from the train stations. The densest areas are full of urban texture. You can find something new and beautiful in any direction. In most areas sidewalks are just a painted strip on the street and there are rarely cars. It should be a model for any serious city. Our long avenues are boring and inefficient for pedestrian travel. It also makes economic since. Just about anyone could open up a little restaurant or shop on the first floor of their house. The place I was staying had a korean restaurant in it. Ohh, I miss tokyo so much now. I wish I could go back!
You’re nuts. Oops, that’s not very diplomatic. I meant to say that I disagree with you.
China, for example, has chaos. They also have a traffic fatality rate that is 3 times that of America.
Germany is heavily engineered… and you’re 11 times less likely to die on your bike in Germany than in our country.
Sure, there are some specific locations in Europe that have adopted some really cool counterintuitive ideas that are working. But, they’re very localized and part of a larger system of self-regulating streets.
I agree that we have way too many traffic signs (quarter of a million in Portland alone). But, there’s room between chaos and rethinking how we sign and treat pavement.
It’s also a question of culture. There are too many cultural issues in the way of this one. For example, I believe that our culture is more like Vietnam’s than it is Japan’s (not saying it’s LIKE Vietnam, just MORE like Vietnam).
A friend of mine went to Vietnam and took some video of CHAOS in action. Two videos…
here’s one from inside a rickshaw – it speaks for itself:
http://splendiferous.org/gallery/saigon/mvi_1691
here’s one of a senior citizen crossing the street (if you ask my 85-year-old neighbor Lois to do this, I’m not going to be happy — and neither is she)
http://splendiferous.org/gallery/saigon/mvi_1653
Germany may be heavily engineered, but it is largely urban, a german cyclist may spend much of his time on urban streets sharing space with the automobile in dense, hetereogenous environments with low traffic speeds and the uncertainty of pedestrian behaviour – the ease of cycling (and safety) may have more to do with the basic urban design of german cities than any specific traffic management designs such as bikelanes and it may be this urban design that makes ambiguity work. In all my time in Munich I only used one bike lane regularly on a wide post-war arterial street. Perhaps by framing the issue in terms of regulation vs. chaos you run the risk of overlooking the significant differences in types or regulation and the possibility that “chaos” is engineered or can be Traffic management by ambiguity or chaos may depend entirely on certain forms urban design that are, unfortunately lacking in this town.
My god, not a day goes by that I don’t dream about moving back to germany, riding in portland is a miserable experience, it’s mainstreets gutted out and turned into what are basically highways, streets designed with one purpose to move cars are quickly as possible out of the city.
On the bright side, the abundance of junk post-war architecture and underdeveloped space leave a lot of room for experimentation.