The Use of Streets: A Reassessment and Tribute to Donald Appleyard

摘要

The way people use streets has been analysed by traditional traffic engineering techniques, conveying the idea that such technical treatment is neutral. This way of thinking underestimates or disregards completely the social and political aspects of urban circulation, especially in developing countries, where traffic environments are much more complex than those of the developed world. The main objective of this paper is to summarize how the use of streets has been treated in the literature and to enhance the essential role of Donald Appleyard's work in challenging traditional views; the latter objective is related to the remembrance of the 20th anniversary of his tragic death in a traffic accident in 1982, and represents a tribute to his work. Among those working in developed countries, Appleyard seems to be the first to use, in a systematic way, a role-conflict approach when analysing the use of streets, replacing a strictly technical and economic view with a social and political view. This leads us to see that people, with different and conflicting interests and needs, will be the object of the analysis of the distribution of road space, implying equity considerations. Although his ideas and proposals sometimes seem ambiguous and his work ended up unfinished in the face of his untimely death, for someone who had just started thinking about a complex issue they represent a remarkable contribution for those working in the field.