The Joy of Conflict

Most of us will avoid conflict in our life if we have a choice about it. Likewise, most designers and planners will be compelled to remove physical conflict as after all, it represents a problem. 

There is a lot to be said for the socialising effect of conflict within the public domain especially and the consequential benefits to more sustainable modes of travel. This counter-intuitive concept is at odds with the foundations for much of our approach to the planning, design, engineering and management of the public domain whereby potential conflict between its users is a matter to be resolved.

Sometime in the 70s, a Dutch traffic engineer, Hans Mondeman, noticed a decline in pedestrian safety and a rise in fatalities after improving the roads in villages to help adjust to the growth of car traffic. What he was observing was a designation of a sizeable part of the public domain to the movement of traffic often in the guise of protecting pedestrians. Ultimately, he realised that this simply changed the social nature of the public domain and as a consequence, made the pedestrian less safe.

Monderman set about changing the paradigm through street designs that typically removed regulatory traffic control features such as kerbs, lane markings, signs, and lights to great effect for the usability of the public domain by non-drivers. Others took up his work, most notably Ben Hamilton-Baillie in Britain under the umbrella of “Shared Space” concepts.  It is gaining ground in Europe and North America, while examples are emerging in Australia such as Bendigo.

Sadly Mondeman passed away in recent years and just as sadly, he wasn’t inclined to publish. However, a slide of a presentation he gave in Edinburgh (from memory) explains the basis of “a change of emphasis to the spatial qualities of place over the linear characteristics of the highway” (Hamilton-Baillie). It also provides a profound rethink of how we approach the conflicts in treating the public domain.

The problem of designing out conflict is that we rob people of the opportunity to cooperate, negotiate and trust others on a continuous and social basis with all the personal rewards that this entails. Mondeman maintained that when we regulate the use of the public domain to ensure the safe and speedy movement of cars by providing certainty to drivers, their awareness of a wider social responsibility evaporates and the pedestrian, rider and public transport user loses out socially as well as in safety and travel.

Many recent examples of Monderman’s approach exist, particularly in Europe, but you don’t have to travel far to observe it in action. Areas in inner Sydney such as Newtown possess streets as little as 9 metres in width that contain footpaths, a parking lane, a two-way single traffic lane and no intersection priority. To add to this potential chaos, many dwellings are built on the boundary with outward opening doors, mats and umbrella stands mixed in with street trees and telegraph poles with little room to walk pass let alone push a pram.

The effect of all this is a central 4 metre single movement path for people, prams, wheelchairs, bikes, cars and the odd brave delivery truck. It works wonderfully well on the premise that pedestrians, riders and drivers alike simply cooperate politely otherwise they wouldn’t last a minute.  All of a sudden, driving a car doesn’t seem like a great idea as well. Importantly however, the human condition requires such  successful transactions between people to help keep us happy and fulfilled.

Despite the odds, these conflict ridden domains are very liveable streets that are deeply domestic, socially rewarding, interesting and nuanced, memorable and wonderfully safe, efficient and sustainable without regulation. The dream of every professional if only they can resist trying to solve every “problem”.