Section under development
We start this collection "others" with the following note from Dr. Jan Visser and then move on to the more structured approach that is curretnly being taken in Bhaktapur to create a Pedestrian Township.
Several years ago an anthropologist friend of mine and I were being expertly driven through the streets of Cairo. Despite the density of the traffic, cars moving forward side by side only several inches apart from each other, bodily contact would normally be avoided. My friend observed: "They move like sheep. When one changes course only slightly, all the others follow." It looked to me like the typical behavior of a complex adaptive system, each agent (sheep) minding its own immediate neighbors and no one trying to provide centralized control. Indeed, policemen were abundantly present. Some of them featuring walkie-talkies (we called them the talking police) and some constantly busy recording events on a little notepad (we called them the writing police). Whatever they did, it seemed to serve its own purpose (like keeping people employed), but it certainly had nothing to do with traffic control.
I spent the past two weeks in India and another taxi driver drove me, with considerable speed, through the crowded streets of Bhopal and Delhi. I felt perfectly safe and confident that there were no risks either for the other road users. The traffic in India is self-regulated in quite different a manner. Cows! You release them in the streets, make it a sin to harm them, and can be sure to keep drivers constantly on the alert. From the perspective of complex system behavior, it's quite interesting. Imagine that here, in South Florida, one would introduce holy cows on the I-95. Significant portions of the local radio programming in the early morning and late afternoon peak hours currently get devoted to informing the driving public about the daily accident scene. Such airtime could serve better purposes. Granted, one would have to seek reemployment for the Florida Highway Patrol, which, in turn, would also somewhat affect the performance of donut establishments in the area. However, I expect the overall change to be perceived as beneficial in the long run.
Thinking about this option, I realized that the Dutch have already done in their country what I just proposed for South Florida. They have adopted legislation that makes any driver of a motorized vehicle punishable whenever he or she hits a pedestrian or a cyclist, whatever the behavior of the latter. In fact, this means that they gave pedestrians and cyclists the status of holy cows. I think it's a neat idea, fully in line with the recognition that traffic behavior cannot be controlled exclusively through centralized interventions.
I imagine that someone may want to install non-invasive magnetic imaging devices in cars to monitor brain activity in people who drive cars in systems where holy cows have replaced the police and those that are still traditionally controlled. I conjecture that significant differences in brain activity could be shown in the average driver in India as compared to the control group in South Florida.
Jan Visser, Ph.D.
The Western ideas of solving problems of transport in cities, which have more likely than not been created by technolocy gone awry, by yet more technology seems to have the center stage in the year 2000. But it may not be the only way (in fact, it may not be any way at all, but that's another debate). So, it is in light of this sad state affairs that we propose here to develop a collection of "other ways" of solving the access problems of our community (bearing in mind that when seen nfrom the bottom line they are neither mobility or transport problems, no matter how much the standard rhetoric and practice may insist).
0. Introduction1. Traffic Control, Self-Regulation, & Holy Cows
President, Learning Development Institute
For more on Bhaktapur's Pedestrian Township approach, click here.
2. The Bhaktapur Approach
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Updated 10 October 2000