Street battles: New urban roads versus pedestrian space

by Carmen Hass-Klau

Walk 21 Vienna 19.10-23.010. 2015

Introduction

This presentation is about successful street battles, which took place over new road construction plans, and as a result of these battles urban transport policies were changed.

When I wrote my new book ‘ The Pedestrian and the City’, I was puzzled by the nearly uncritical approach to urban road building during the 1950s and 60s, which was without any consideration for the social and land use implications.

The demand for new roads was as powerful in the US as it was in Europe. It did not matter whether the country was ruled by communists or democratic governments.

I will talk about:

• The Vision• Plans and Construction • Street Battles• Conclusion

Let’s first think:

• where did this demand for excessive road building come from and

• when did the battles against road building start

• where did it lead and has it finished?

The Vision

In the 1920s and 1930s the future mode was seen to be the car.

Cycling, walking and even public transport were ‘inadequate and belonging to the city of the past’.

The new city would be built for the car.

The ‘car city’ was also presented by Norman Bel Geddes ‘Futurama’ at the World’s Fair of 1939 in New York

In this World Exhibition one could see from above how the new city would look like

Le Corbusier

The vision of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier was very influential after World War II not only in Western but also in Eastern Europe. He was a great believer in modernising cities to incorporate the car.

When we look at his drawings the historic city disappears and is replaced by high rise buildings and wide streets for car traffic.

His vision for Paris in 1925

UK: Colin Buchanan

His report ‘Traffic in Towns’ achieved high popularity in 1963. Some of the images were adaptations of Le Corbusier’s vision.

Most experts knew what the future would look like. The ‘old’ city would go for ever and traffic congestion would be a thing of the past.

The ‘new’ city would be healthy with high rise buildings and plenty of green space to allow sun and light. Traffic separation was the slogan of the time.

Plans and construction: Where did it start?USA

For decades New York had been suffering from chronic road congestion and had neglected its public transport systems.

In order to push urban road projects through, radical urban renewal became essential.

The City Park Commissioner Robert Moses removed about half a million people from their homes. No exact figure exists. And it was always the same group of people they threw out: the blacks, the poor and the Puerto Ricans.

Caro (1974) wrote about Moses: ‘He tore out the hearts of a score of neighbourhoods, communities the size of small cities themselves, communities that had been lively, friendly places to live, the vital parts of the city that made New York a home to its people. By building his highways, Moses flooded the city with cars. By systematically starving the subways and the suburban commuter railroads he swelled that flood to city-destroying dimensions’ (p. 19).

Greater London Plan 1944Abercrombie proposed six ring roads of which the last two would be outside Greater London (only one was actually built - the M25). These rings were connected with radial roads.

In 1966 and 1967, the Greater London Council (GLC) adopted Abercrombie’s plan.

As well as in the US there was the belief that urban renewal and new road constructions should be tackled simultaneously.

Urban motorways in West Berlin

Reality

The reality was different from the forecasts. As it turned out the realization of the future city did also not take place for pedestrians.

They did not get their own transport corridors, they got if they were lucky underpasses at newly built junctions, which were so unpopular that in most cities these underpasses were later filled in and ‘normal’ street crossings provided.

Opposition

Protests began first in New York, but it was quickly taken up by different neighbourhoods in other cities.

Often these fights took many years, such as the fight against the Manhattan expressways, proposed after the Second World War and finally stopped in 1969 or the fight against a major road in Washington Square.

Washington Square today

California The citizens of San Francisco were very effective in their revolt against urban motorways. The most controversial project was the double-decker elevated Embarcadero Freeway.The Embarcadero Freeway was opened in 1957 but was never completed. The 1989 earthquake solved the problem: the Freeway simply collapsed.

Embarcadero Freeway

Ferry building today

Continuation from the ferry building towards the city centre

A fierce battle against urban motorways started in London

• The public inquiry started in 1970. It was concluded that the motorways in London would not solve the transport problems but increase them. There would be:•more traffic jams, •more accidents, •more noise and pollution, • fewer buses and fuller car parks.

Europe

Preserving some of the historic urban areas was always an objective in most European countries. It was the combination of new and improved public transport systems and large-scale pedestrianization that brought city centres back to new life.

Trams in Strasbourg

Large-scale pedestrianization in Augsburg - south Germany

ConclusionIt has been a long continuous struggle to get more and better walkable cities. The damage done in European cities by road building is more limited compared to the US, but recently I find that proposals for new road building are cropping up again. I do not know what is happening in your cities but maybe you can tell a similar story.

Thank you for listening to me