More and more citizens around the world become aware of the fact that cities need to change their transportation systems. The population is growing in lots of places in the world, and the infrastructure can no longer support them. For this reason, authorities all over the world are investing more time and money in improving their infrastructure for a new type of transportation.
Shared Roads – The New Solution
One innovative solution is to take up shared roads. This means that certain portions of the road become shared between various categories of citizens. Some of the most common found ones are the bike lanes that are shared with pedestrians, for instance. Other city halls decide to split the road into various lanes, one of them being dedicated to buses and limited to 30 mph, while others want to improve accessibility for bus users.
Needless to say, these changes sparked some interesting discussions all over the world. Are these changes necessary? Are they compulsory? Some people agree with the modifications since they fluidize the traffic. However, others claim they are completely unnecessary. If you do some research, you will see that there are lots of news showing various communities rejecting the idea of sharing the road. Some examples are the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association in London, or various Motorbikes associations in Spain.
For or Against
Back in April this year, the Servicing Stop in London held a survey on this topic. They asked 1,500 drivers to say whether they are in favor of reducing the road space allotted for cars and building more lanes for bikes. A third of the people who were surveyed answered that it is indeed safer to narrow the roads for bike lanes.
At the same time, 20% of the responders did not agree with building more way for cycle lanes. 7% of the drivers that were asked said that it’s completely unnecessary to make more space for new cycle lanes, while 13% agreed that the new lanes would only create more traffic congestion. A surprising number of 71% thought that cyclist roads on a place where there were no segregated lane don’t bother them.
Toronto Supports the Idea
In June, we had the chance to see some other results, this time from Toronto. The results showed that people there love the idea of sharing roads as well. More than 4 people in 5 interviewees in Toronto said they would lower their speeds and accept to travel more slowly for the sake of cutting down on traffic collisions. 80% of them added that they are in favor of supporting a safe network for bikes that would extend all throughout their city.
All in all, it seems that the idea of sharing roads is catching on more and more around the world.
