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Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

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Robert Holmes

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/05/20/traffic_design/index.html

Dr. Robert Holmes

PO Box 2862, Santa Fe, NM 87504
mobile: (505) 310-1735
web: www.holmesacosta.com

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Owen Densmore

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

Administrator

Looks interesting! Could you send the text? When I try to read the
story, it asks for a subscription.

Thanks!

On May 20, 2004, at 8:38 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:

> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/05/20/traffic_design/index.html
>
> Dr. Robert Holmes
>
> PO Box 2862, Santa Fe, NM 87504
> mobile: (505) 310-1735
> web: www.holmesacosta.com
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

-- Owen

Owen Densmore 908 Camino Santander Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168 Home: 505-988-3787 http://backspaces.net

Owen Densmore

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

Administrator

On May 20, 2004, at 10:05 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> Looks interesting! Could you send the text? When I try to read the
> story, it asks for a subscription.
>
> Thanks!

I did it .. here it is:

Why don't we do it in the road?
A new school of traffic design says we should get rid of stop signs and
red lights and let cars, bikes and people mingle together. It sounds
insane, but it works.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Linda Baker

May 20, 2004 ?|? It's rush hour, and I am standing at the corner of
Zhuhui and Renmin Road, a four-lane intersection in Suzhou, China.
Ignoring the red light, a couple of taxis and a dozen bicycles are
headed straight for a huge mass of cyclists, cars, pedicabs and mopeds
that are turning left in front of me. Cringing, I anticipate a
collision. Like a flock of migrating birds, however, the mass changes
formation. A space opens up, the taxis and bicycles move in, and
hundreds of commuters continue down the street, unperturbed and
fatality free.

In Suzhou, the traffic rules are simple. "There are no rules," as one
local told me. A city of 2.2 million people, Suzhou has 500,000 cars
and 900,000 bicycles, not to mention hundreds of pedicabs, mopeds and
assorted, quainter forms of transportation. Drivers of all modes pay
little attention to the few traffic signals and weave wildly from one
side of the street to another. Defying survival instincts, pedestrians
have to barge between oncoming cars to cross the roads.

But here's the catch: During the 10 days I spent in Suzhou last fall,
I didn't see a single accident. Really, not a single one. Nor was there
any of the road rage one might expect given the anarchy that passes for
traffic policy. And despite the obvious advantages that accrue to cars
because of their size, no single transportation mode dominates the
streets. On the contrary, the urban arterials are a communal mix of
automobiles, cyclists, pedestrians, and small businesses such as
inner-tube repairmen that set up shop directly in the right-of-way.

As the mother of two young children and an alternative-transportation
advocate, I've spent the past decade supporting the installation of
ever more traffic controls: crosswalks, traffic signals, speed bumps,
and speed limit signs in school zones. But I'd only been in Suzhou a
few days before I started thinking that maybe there's a method to the
city's traffic madness -- a logic that has nothing to do with the
system of prohibition and segregation that governs transportation
policy in the United States.

As it turns out, I'm far from the first person to think along these
lines. In fact, the chaos associated with traffic in developing
countries is becoming all the rage among a new wave of traffic
engineers in mainland Europe and, more recently, in the United Kingdom.
It's called "second generation" traffic calming, a combination of
traffic engineering and urban design that also draws heavily on the
fields of behavioral psychology and -- of all subjects -- evolutionary
biology. Rejecting the idea of separating people from vehicular
traffic, it's a concept that privileges multiplicity over homogeneity,
disorder over order, and intrigue over certainty. In practice, it's
about dismantling barriers: between the road and the sidewalk, between
cars, pedestrians and cyclists and, most controversially, between
moving vehicles and children at play.

For the past 50 years, the American approach to traffic safety has
been dominated by the "triple E" paradigm: engineering, enforcement and
education. And yet, the idea of the street as a flexible community
space is a provocative one in the United States, precisely because
other "traditional" modes of transportation -- light rail, streetcars
and bicycles -- are making a comeback in cities across the country. The
shared-street concept is also intriguing for the way it challenges one
of the fundamental tenets of American urban planning: that to create
safe communities, you have to control them.

"One of the characteristics of a shared environment is that it appears
chaotic, it appears very complex, and it demands a strong level of
having your wits about you," says U.K. traffic and urban design
consultant Ben Hamilton-Baillie, speaking from his home in Bristol.
"The history of traffic engineering is the effort to rationalize what
appeared to be chaos," he says. "Today, we have a better understanding
that chaos can be productive."

A few years ago, Hamilton-Baillie spent several months researching
traffic and street design in northwest Europe, followed by a stint as a
Loeb fellow at Harvard. A former researcher at Sustrans, a
sustainable-transportation nonprofit agency, he has become a leading
proponent of the shared-spaces and second-generation approach, which he
says meets the needs of automobiles while returning streets to their
historic function as civic gathering places.

But the implications, especially in the United States, are nothing
less than radical. Reversing decades of conventional wisdom on traffic
engineering, Hamilton-Baillie argues that the key to improving both
safety and vehicular capacity is to remove traffic lights and other
controls, such as stop signs and the white and yellow lines dividing
streets into lanes. Without any clear right-of-way, he says, motorists
are forced to slow down to safer speeds, make eye contact with
pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers, and decide among themselves
when it is safe to proceed.

"The more you post the evidence of legislative control, such as
traffic signs, the less the driver is trying to use his or her own
senses," says Hamilton-Baillie, noting he has a habit of walking
randomly across roads -- much to his wife's consternation. "So the less
you can advertise the presence of the state in terms of authority, the
more effective this approach can be." This, of course, is the exact
opposite of the "Triple E" traffic-calming approach, which seeks to
control the driver through the use of speed bumps, photo radar,
crosswalks and other engineering and enforcement mechanisms.

The "self-reading street" has its roots in the Dutch "woonerf" design
principles that emerged in the 1970s. Blurring the boundary between
street and sidewalk, woonerfs combine innovative paving, landscaping
and other urban designs to allow for the integration of multiple
functions in a single street, so that pedestrians, cyclists and
children playing share the road with slow-moving cars. The pilot
projects were so successful in fostering better urban environments that
the ideas spread rapidly to Belgium, France, Denmark and Germany. In
1998, the British government adopted a "Home Zones" initiative -- the
woonerf equivalent -- as part of its national transportation policy.

"What the early woonerf principles realized," says Hamilton-Baillie,
"was that there was a two-way interaction between people and traffic.
It was a vicious or, rather, a virtuous circle: The busier the streets
are, the safer they become. So once you drive people off the street,
they become less safe."

Contrast this approach with that of the United Kingdom and the United
States, where education campaigns from the 1960s onward were based on
maintaining a clear separation between the highway and the rest of the
public realm. Children were trained to modify their behavior and, under
pain of death, to stay out of the street. "But as soon as you emphasize
separation of functions, you have a more dangerous environment," says
Hamilton-Baillie. "Because then the driver sees that he or she has
priority. And the child who forgets for a moment and chases a ball
across the street is a child in the wrong place."

When it comes to reconfiguring streets as community spaces, ground
zero is once again Holland and Denmark, where planners are removing
traffic lights in some towns and cities, as well as white divider
lines, sidewalks and speed limits. Research has shown that fatality
rates at busy intersections, where two or three people were being
killed every year, dropped to zero when controls and boundaries were
taken away. (This is food for thought among alternative-transportation
advocates in the United States, who extol northern Europe as a model
precisely because so much space in these countries is dedicated to
segregated pedestrian spaces and bike lanes.)

A photo of a reconstructed intersection, "the Brink," in the Dutch
province of Friesland, provides more design details. Until 1998, the
Brink was a standard asphalt intersection with traffic controls and
segregated spaces. Today, the entire area has been repaved with red
bricks bordered by sections of green railing. A raised piazza juts into
the middle of the intersection, but there are no sidewalks, road
markings, or right-of-way signs. Every day, 4,500 cars share the space
with cyclists and pedestrians who wander about "the road" at will.

Hamilton-Baillie recalls visiting "the Brink" with Hans Mondermann of
the Friesland Regional Organization for Traffic Safety, a planner who
has redesigned several intersections with second-generation ideas in
mind. "I was amazed to hear him say, 'Have you ever seen so many
traffic violations?'" said Hamilton-Baillie. "'No rules, no rules,' he
told me. 'You have to think.'"

Subvert, don't attack, the dominant paradigm. Or, as David Engwicht, a
shared-spaces proponent in Brisbane, Australia, has written: "Implicit
in the whole notion of second-generation traffic calming is the idea
that significant social change only happens when we amplify the
paradoxical 'submerged voice' as opposed to tearing down the 'dominant
voice.' Engwicht, a plenary speaker at the Walk 21 Cities for People
Conference in Copenhagen this June, argues that controlling a driver's
natural propensity for speed is futile. A more effective approach is to
engage the driver by emphasizing "uncertainty and intrigue" in the
street environment -- for example, planting a tree in the middle of the
street instead of putting up a stop sign.

"Standardized signage and use of standardized road markings should be
reduced to a minimum," Engwicht writes. "As they create predictability
and contain no intrigue. They also reinforce that a street belongs
exclusively to the motorists."

There's another step in the second-generation logic process. Safety
analysts have known for several decades that the maximum vehicle speed
at which pedestrians can escape severe injury upon impact is just under
20 miles per hour. Research also suggests that an individual's ability
to interact and retain eye contact with other human beings diminishes
rapidly at speeds greater than 20 miles per hour. One theory behind
this magic bullet, says Hamilton-Baillie, is that 20 mph is the
"maximum theoretical running speed" for human beings. (Evolutionary
biologist E.O. Wilson has drawn similar conclusions.) "This is of
interest," he says, "because it suggests that our physiology and
psychology has evolved based around the potential maximum impact on the
speed of human beings."

The ramifications go beyond safety, says Hamilton-Baillie, to bear
directly on the interplay between speed, traffic controls and vehicle
capacity. Evidence from countries and cities that have introduced a
design speed of 30 kilometers per hour (about 18.5 mph) -- as many of
the European Union nations are doing -- shows that slower speeds
improve traffic flow and reduce congestion.

"This surprises many people, although mathematically it's not
surprising," Hamilton-Baillie says. "The reason for this is that your
speed of journey, the ability of traffic to move smoothly through the
built environment, depends on performance of your intersections, not on
your speed of flow between intersections." And intersections, he says,
work much more efficiently at lower speeds. "At 30 miles per hour, you
frequently need control systems like traffic signals, which themselves
mean that the intersection is not in use for significant periods of
time. Whereas at slower speeds vehicles can move much more closely
together and drivers can use eye contact to engage and make decisions.
So you get much higher capacity."

Combining slower speeds with a reduction in traffic controls, in other
words, may have more than public safety and shared-space benefits. It
also appears to profit the driver. (This is the logic behind the modern
roundabout, a redesigned version of the classic traffic circle that is
replacing signalized intersections in the United Kingdom and is gaining
acceptance among transportation officials in the United States).

"You can see this is the way to break out of the pro-car, anti-car
debate," Hamilton-Baillie says. "Because the shared approach very much
accepts the car as a vital useful component in cities that will remain
with us for some generations to come."

Let's return to China for a minute. If traffic in the world's most
populous country provides a useful comparison and contrast, it's
because second-generation traffic calming isn't about anarchy; it's
about studied anarchy. In essence, Hamilton-Baillie is advocating for a
new field: one that blends traffic engineering with urban design. Or,
as he titled an upcoming paper: "Urban Design: Why Don't We Do It in
the Road?" There's a place for highways and roads dedicated solely to
the movement of automobiles, he says. Just not in the city, where
streets constitute 70 percent of all public space.

"You have to have a completely different approach to the design of
streets in the broad urban realm," he says. "You have to make an
absolutely clear transition between those roads that are necessary, the
state-controlled and legislative world of the traffic environment, to
the human-controlled, culturally controlled world of the city, where
you pick up your rules not from what you're allowed to do, but from a
much more subtle and complex series of codes that are implicit through
design and environment."

"If I walk into your living room, I do not need a sign that says, Do
Not Spit on the Floor," he explains. "Indeed, if there were such a
sign, it would probably be counterproductive."

Over the last few years, the shared-street concept has emigrated out
of mainland Europe to the United Kingdom. In addition to home zones,
which are cropping up in isolated residential developments, the city of
Manchester is currently reconfiguring a major section of its central
core according to shared-space principles. Hamilton-Baillie himself is
working a project that he says is the first in the country to bring
together all the elements of second-generation traffic calming:
removing the road markings from a road that runs past a primary school
in the city of Bath. It's a project, he says, that capitalizes on the
area's "rich urban morphology" -- St. James Square, the school and a
historic church -- to "create a series of places rather than a single
highway."

In the United States, as one might expect, policymakers haven't
exactly embraced the virtues of ambiguity and uncertainty embodied in
second-generation principles. "Woonerfs are certainly being planned on
private property," says James Daisa, a project manager at Kimley-Horn
Associates and a national expert on pedestrian-friendly development.
"But the concept has yet to come to bear on public streets." City codes
are part of the problem, he says. The reluctance of traffic engineers
is another.

Consider the case of Brookline, Mass., which installed a woonerf in
front of a Marriott Hotel last January. A patchwork of brick pavings,
the shared-space lacks big curbs, and the sidewalk and street are all
at the same level. But as reporter Anthony Flint noted in the Boston
Globe, the public works department botched the entire concept by
painting white lines and big right-turn arrows on the street, and
placing yellow-and-black-striped rectangles on the landscaped
"bump-outs."

"It's clear that advocates and private developers aren't sufficient to
bring about a true woonerf," wrote Flint. "The traffic engineers need
to be in the room, and they need to understand the concept. A
fact-finding trip to the Netherlands may be in order."

For their part, many American traffic engineers say one critical
ingredient is missing for a system built around shared spaces to work
in the United States: a communal sensibility. "We live in a culture
that gives so much value to the individual and the expression of that
is how we act in a car," says Robert Burchfield, a city traffic
engineer in my home town of Portland, Ore., which is nationally
recognized for its preservation of public space and its dedicated
network of cycling lanes and pedestrian pathways. "I'm not comfortable
with less order when I can't get people to go below 50 or 60 miles per
hour."

But this, of course, is precisely the point; redesign the street
environment as an active community space, and you equalize the power
relationship between cars and human beings "The real gain in urban
quality does not come from clawing back areas of the city from cars, as
important as that is," said Hamilton-Baillie, who gave a talk at the
Portland Department of Transportation last fall. "But the next step is
how you apply a broader approach to those areas where you need cars and
trucks, bicycles and shops, and pedestrians and children's play, all
those different functions to take place in precious urban space."

Even if we're not ready to send our children merrily into the street,
many of us, intuitively, have already embraced the concepts behind
second-generation traffic calming. Like most other parents, I've
drilled into my kids the fact that traffic lights and signs work for
cars, but don't necessarily serve pedestrians who want to make it
across the street in one piece. "Look left, look right, look left
again," I preach ad nauseum -- even when the walk signal is green. And
who can resist the symbolism associated with recapturing the street for
the (teeming) masses? It's not quite the fall of the Berlin Wall, but
the shared-space approach overturns the landmarks of sedentary
isolation -- everything from gated communities to skyrocketing
childhood obesity rates -- to celebrate the complexity and
contradictions of city life.

The absence of traffic controls means that people are out for
themselves; the trick is, they have to look out for everyone else as
well. Second-generation traffic design is a curious mix of selfishness
and altruism, of order amid chaos. And, after a fashion, it just might
work.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Linda Baker is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon.

Joe Spinden

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

I have seen this on my travels in Myanmar (Burma), where I only saw one
accident on several trips. (although on my last trip I saw more traffic
lights..)

But I had the same reaction as the traffic engineer..
& SF seems to have some of the worst drivers I have seen anywhere. Drivers
here are aggressively bad. I have seen people ready to fight over honking
(in response to poor driving, of course).

So I think that culturally we in SF are not ready for this..
perhaps in some of the more civilized parts of the world such as China,
Holland, & Myanmar..

Stephen Guerin

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.

When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned behavior
for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first make
eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This strategy
fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing likelihood
of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up giving
up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the street and
adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of a Mr.
Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars tend
to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect strategy
and will incur an occasional collision. :-(

It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to a
more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro adjustments very
similar to the three rules of flocking: keep minimal distance, keep in
general direction and keep average speed. Once learned, it is extremely
liberating. Riding a bike at full speed through Beijing traffic through
intersections without stopping, flowing around obstacles without stopping
and riding alongside bikes, cars and trucks in extreme proximity is an
amazing experience of the collective.

-Steve

____________________________________________________
http://www.redfish.com [hidden email]
624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828

> -----Original Message-----
> From: joseph spinden [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 4:46 AM
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> Subject: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming
>
>
> I have seen this on my travels in Myanmar (Burma), where I only saw one
> accident on several trips. (although on my last trip I saw more traffic
> lights..)
>
> But I had the same reaction as the traffic engineer..
> & SF seems to have some of the worst drivers I have seen
> anywhere. Drivers
> here are aggressively bad. I have seen people ready to fight over honking
> (in response to poor driving, of course).
>
> So I think that culturally we in SF are not ready for this..
> perhaps in some of the more civilized parts of the world such as China,
> Holland, & Myanmar..
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>

cez-3

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

I have to comment that I find this conversation about traffic flow for cars,
bikes and pedestrians very, very interesting. Would that we could try that
in Santa Fe - it makes so much sense and seems a calmer way than being
afraid to start when the light turns green for fear of the 10 cars that will
choose to run the red light, etc. in Santa Fe.

Catherine E. Zacher, President
Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
624 Agua Fria (87501) P.O. Box 8184 (87504)
505.984.2842

www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> [hidden email]
<mailto:[hidden email]>

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On
Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 1:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.

When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned behavior
for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first make
eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This strategy
fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing likelihood
of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up giving
up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the street and
adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of a Mr.
Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars tend
to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect strategy
and will incur an occasional collision. :-(

It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to a
more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro adjustments very
similar to the three rules of flocking: keep minimal distance, keep in
general direction and keep average speed. Once learned, it is extremely
liberating. Riding a bike at full speed through Beijing traffic through
intersections without stopping, flowing around obstacles without stopping
and riding alongside bikes, cars and trucks in extreme proximity is an
amazing experience of the collective.

-Steve

____________________________________________________
http://www.redfish.com [hidden email]
624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org

Fred Seibel

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

A Harvard student was visited by his family from a small midwestern
town. As they were walking around the square, the student stepped off
the curb into the path of an approaching phalanx of taxis, buses, and
autos--his parents shrieked "Look out!!!". The student calmly replied,
"Don't worry, they'll stop". Later that evening the student was
driving the family car, taking the folks out to dinner. As they passed
through the square, Mom again shrieked "Look out!!!" as she observed a
student stepping into their path. Again the student remarked, "Don't
worry, he'll stop".

On May 20, 2004, at 2:38 PM, cez wrote:

> I have to comment that I find this conversation about traffic flow for
> cars,
> bikes and pedestrians very, very interesting. Would that we could try
> that
> in Santa Fe - it makes so much sense and seems a calmer way than being
> afraid to start when the light turns green for fear of the 10 cars
> that will
> choose to run the red light, etc. in Santa Fe.
>
> Catherine E. Zacher, President
> Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
> 624 Agua Fria (87501) P.O. Box 8184 (87504)
> 505.984.2842
>
> www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> [hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>
>
> Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
> change
> the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On
> Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 1:32 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming
>
>
> Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.
>
> When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned
> behavior
> for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
> inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first
> make
> eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
> collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This
> strategy
> fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing
> likelihood
> of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up
> giving
> up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the
> street and
> adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
> without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of
> a Mr.
> Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
> Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars
> tend
> to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
> would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect
> strategy
> and will incur an occasional collision. :-(
>
> It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to
> a
> more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro
> adjustments very
> similar to the three rules of flocking: keep minimal distance, keep in
> general direction and keep average speed. Once learned, it is extremely
> liberating. Riding a bike at full speed through Beijing traffic through
> intersections without stopping, flowing around obstacles without
> stopping
> and riding alongside bikes, cars and trucks in extreme proximity is an
> amazing experience of the collective.
>
> -Steve
>
> ____________________________________________________
> http://www.redfish.com [hidden email]
> 624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
> Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: joseph spinden [mailto:[hidden email]]
>> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 4:46 AM
>> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
>> Subject: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming
>>
>>
>> I have seen this on my travels in Myanmar (Burma), where I only saw
>> one
>> accident on several trips. (although on my last trip I saw more
>> traffic
>> lights..)
>>
>> But I had the same reaction as the traffic engineer..
>> & SF seems to have some of the worst drivers I have seen
>> anywhere. Drivers
>> here are aggressively bad. I have seen people ready to fight over
>> honking
>> (in response to poor driving, of course).
>>
>> So I think that culturally we in SF are not ready for this..
>> perhaps in some of the more civilized parts of the world such as
>> China,
>> Holland, & Myanmar..
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
>> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
>> http://www.friam.org
>>
>>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>

Frank Wimberly

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

Y'all should know that Fred went to Yale.
-----
Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Fred Seibel
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 5:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

A Harvard student was visited by his family from a small midwestern
town. As they were walking around the square, the student stepped off
the curb into the path of an approaching phalanx of taxis, buses, and
autos--his parents shrieked "Look out!!!". The student calmly replied,
"Don't worry, they'll stop". Later that evening the student was
driving the family car, taking the folks out to dinner. As they passed
through the square, Mom again shrieked "Look out!!!" as she observed a
student stepping into their path. Again the student remarked, "Don't
worry, he'll stop".

On May 20, 2004, at 2:38 PM, cez wrote:

Mohammed El-Beltagy

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

In reply to this post by Stephen Guerin

I find this discussion about the new wave of traffic planning very
interesting. In Cairo, traffic is indeed chaotic and yet self-organizing.
Kids are playing soccer on the streets, you try to steer away from them, and
they also adjust their game to amount of traffic flowing. Traffic lights
and street signs are often ignored. Yet accidents are quite rare, and there
is a very strange mixture of selfishness and altruism in the driver's
attitude. There is an emergent and unwritten code of does and don't.

But although you feel part of the collective and it could be fun sometimes,
there is a price to pay for this:

1.. Your nerves are often wracked
2.. You are very exhausted for shorter driving periods and distances,
driving involves far more concentration and mental alertness
3.. You can not think lofty and noble thoughts as you are often muttering
swear words at the guy who just honked, the kid who kicked the soccer ball
at your windshield, or the guy on the bicycle who just swerved in front of
you

But that is just my experience in Cairo. I wonder if it gets better with
well "designed" woonerfs.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Guerin" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 11:32 PM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

> Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.
>
> When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned behavior
> for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
> inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first make
> eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
> collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This strategy
> fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing
likelihood
> of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up giving
> up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the street
and
> adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
> without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of a
Mr.
> Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
> Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars tend
> to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
> would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect
strategy
> and will incur an occasional collision. :-(
>
> It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to a
> more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro adjustments
very

> similar to the three rules of flocking: keep minimal distance, keep in
> general direction and keep average speed. Once learned, it is extremely
> liberating. Riding a bike at full speed through Beijing traffic through
> intersections without stopping, flowing around obstacles without stopping
> and riding alongside bikes, cars and trucks in extreme proximity is an
> amazing experience of the collective.
>
> -Steve
>
> ____________________________________________________
> http://www.redfish.com [hidden email]
> 624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
> Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: joseph spinden [mailto:[hidden email]]
> > Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 4:46 AM
> > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming
> >
> >
> > I have seen this on my travels in Myanmar (Burma), where I only saw one
> > accident on several trips. (although on my last trip I saw more traffic
> > lights..)
> >
> > But I had the same reaction as the traffic engineer..
> > & SF seems to have some of the worst drivers I have seen
> > anywhere. Drivers
> > here are aggressively bad. I have seen people ready to fight over

honking

> > (in response to poor driving, of course).
> >
> > So I think that culturally we in SF are not ready for this..
> > perhaps in some of the more civilized parts of the world such as China,
> > Holland, & Myanmar..
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>

Joe Spinden

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

My experience in Myanmar was trouble-free.

However,
(1) I always was riding a bicycle, not driving a car,
(2) although I do not recall much cursing, I doubt that I was thinking lofty
& noble thoughts.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Mohammed El-Beltagy
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 4:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

I find this discussion about the new wave of traffic planning very
interesting. In Cairo, traffic is indeed chaotic and yet self-organizing.
Kids are playing soccer on the streets, you try to steer away from them, and
they also adjust their game to amount of traffic flowing. Traffic lights
and street signs are often ignored. Yet accidents are quite rare, and there
is a very strange mixture of selfishness and altruism in the driver's
attitude. There is an emergent and unwritten code of does and don't.

But although you feel part of the collective and it could be fun sometimes,
there is a price to pay for this:

1.. Your nerves are often wracked
2.. You are very exhausted for shorter driving periods and distances,
driving involves far more concentration and mental alertness
3.. You can not think lofty and noble thoughts as you are often muttering
swear words at the guy who just honked, the kid who kicked the soccer ball
at your windshield, or the guy on the bicycle who just swerved in front of
you

But that is just my experience in Cairo. I wonder if it gets better with
well "designed" woonerfs.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Guerin" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 11:32 PM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

> Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.
>
> When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned behavior
> for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
> inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first make
> eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
> collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This strategy
> fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing
likelihood
> of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up giving
> up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the street
and
> adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
> without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of a
Mr.
> Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
> Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars tend
> to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
> would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect
strategy
> and will incur an occasional collision. :-(
>
> It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to a
> more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro adjustments
very

honking

Stu Kauffman

Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

In reply to this post by Stephen Guerin

Steve, sorry to take this very public way to reach you, but you may have
lost a "Key Drive" clip in Boston and it was given to me, and is in my
drawer at my office. best to all. Stu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Guerin" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 2:32 PM
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Evolutionary biology & traffic calming

> Interesting. It resonates with my experience in Beijing.
>
> When I first arrived, I was fascinated by how my American-learned behavior
> for crossing the street as a pedestrian and riding a bike was totally
> inappropriate for the local system. My American instinct was to first make
> eye contact with bikes, cars or pedestrians that were on a possible
> collision path and negotiate ahead of time for right of way. This strategy
> fails. In China, the tendency is to simply move while minimizing
likelihood
> of collision; Right of way is never assumed nor granted. I ended up giving
> up right-of-way strategy for the first few days when crossing the street
and
> adopted a "naive agent" strategy where one simply steps into the stream
> without looking and let the bicycles and cars flow around you. Kind of a
Mr.
> Magoo approach that takes a small leap of faith but kind of fun.
> Surprisingly, this is a good first pass solution. Bicyclists and cars tend
> to accomodate you and don't seem to get ruffled like an American driver
> would when you assume right of way. Of course, this isn't a perfect
strategy
> and will incur an occasional collision. :-(
>
> It took me a couple of days to get past this naive behavior and get to a
> more native behavior. This is where you learn to make micro adjustments
very

honking

Frank Wimberly

Ants

I just saw three ants cooperatively carrying an object which was too big for
any one of them to carry. How many neurons do they have?

-----
Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505