Auckland 2012: Building form and use changes that can typify one-way arterials
One way streets “one-ways” came hand in hand with the radical transformation of western cities with the advent of the automobile, superhighway, and associated suburban development patterns. City designers used the combination of highways and one-ways to increase travel efficiencies into the city centres of many large cities. While much of the work was conducted throughout the 5o’s and 60′s, the inspiration is most regularly cited as starting with the 1939-1940 New York City World’s fair exhibit called Futurama and the popularisation of a modern vision of cities as proposed by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van de Rohe. Both Futurama and Le Corbusier imagined a city free of congestion and its associated noise, smells and dirt, and a place where citizens were wisked to their destinations via a series of wide expressways in private motorcars.
The one-ways in many ways were disasters for cities as Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs told us they would be. The mono-functional nature of the streets tended replace the prime purpose of the city in the first place — proximity and connectivity of people (not cars). Instead, one-ways became economic dividing lines working much the way inter-city freeways do today to choke cities of their vitality.
Now half a century later the movement to return the one-ways to two ways is moving in earnest. Several such examples can be found in New Zealand. In Christchurch during the early post-earthquakes redevelopment schemes architect Ian Athfield took an admirable stance by issuing an “ultimatum” that the one -ways would have to be converted back or he would not be involved. To his credit and others involved, the recently released Christchurch Central City Plan calls for the the one-ways to be changed back to two-direction with the addition Copenhagen-style cycle tracks, and other public realm improvements.
- Christchurch City’s plan to “two-way” several streets (source: Central City Recovery Plan)
Previous to the earthquakes Isthmus worked with Christchurch City Council to evaluate the urban design outcomes of developments located throughout the centre city. Interestingly, poorly scoring developments were all located within a donut-shaped ring around the cbd which also happened to correspond to the one-way street network. The one-way streets were clearly influencing the type and quality of buildings.
In Auckland, the Draft Auckland Central City Master Plan calls for the two-waying of Hobson and Nelson Streets, both currently 4+ lane feeders to the motorway adjacent to the cbd. The Plan calls for the streets to become “attractive boulevards or ‘green links’, that invite people into the city.”
The Two-Way Plan for Nelson and Hobson Street in central Auckland (Source: Draft Auckland Centre City Masterplan)
Here is a great article from the National Post (Canada) on the international movement of cities to restore one-way streets back to two. The article describes recent success stories in Canada, and mentions the transformations that have been occuring all over North America and Australia too. The article contrasts the long history of two-way road travel compared to the relatively short and auto-centric application of the one-way city street.
The Romans held their empire together with 80,500 kilometres of paved two-way roads, and when Incan porters carried supplies to Machu Picchu, they often passed llama caravans going the other direction. For the past 100 years, however, we have lived in a peculiar age of one-way streets. But as blighted downtowns across North America try to woo suburbanites back into the core, the brief, shining reign of the one-way seems to be drawing to a close.
The article references several studies that show that one-ways are both more dangerous and destructive to urban life. Peter Calthorpe brings some levity to the conversation by arguing that not all one-ways are bad,“There’s this sad oversimplification going on where some people are just saying, ‘One-way streets are bad.’”
This is true of course; and it’s important to remember that one-way streets by themselves are not the issue, but instead it is vehicle speed, traffic volume, lack of pedestrian amenities, and reduced spatial connectivity – it just so happens that one-ways typically bring with them all of these problems.
Tags: Calthorpe, Christchurch, Mumford
