If you make a road real wide and put up lots of 55-mph speed-limit signs, he told Wired magazine a few years ago, it effectively tells motorists: "Go ahead, don't worry, go as fast as you want, there's no need to pay attention to your surroundings. And that's a very dangerous message."
Various tricks employed by Shared Space -- eliminating turn lanes, narrowing roadways and erasing the center lane lines on secondary roads to slow down traffic and thereby reduce accidents -- are being used across Europe and even in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla.
But don't worry. Shared Space won't be coming to a tangled intersection near you anytime soon.
It's still pretty much a Euro-thing. But its deregulatory spirit ought to appeal to every American who's noticed that our traffic is micromanaged by government to the point of absurdity. And noticed that half of the 500 federally approved traffic signs we must obey are unnecessary and that we have 10 times the red lights we really need.
Bill Steigerwald
Bill Steigerwald, born and raised in Pittsburgh, is a former L.A. Times copy editor and free-lancer who also worked as a docudrama researcher for CBS-TV in Hollywood before becoming a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a columnist Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Bill Steigerwald recently retired from daily newspaper journalism..
TOWNHALL DAILY:
Sign up today and receive Townhall.com daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.