The use of streets: a reassessment and tribute to Donald Appleyard

Abstract

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.

Notes

Correspondence Address: Eduardo Alca˘ntara de Vasconcellos, Associação Nacional de Transportes Públicos (ANTP), Al. Santos 1000, 7o. andar, 01418–100 São Paulo, Brazil. Email: [email protected]

The paper also has a personal motive. The author started developing a theory of role conflict and the social aspects of urban traffic in 1979, while working as a traffic engineer for the São Paulo Traffic Department. This effort eventually resulted in a final paper for the urban sociology class at the University of São Paulo in 1980. At that time the author did not know Appleyard's work. When the author first read Livable Streets in 1983, he realized how close he and Appleyard were on their approaches, although working within completely different traffic environments and thinking about different practical solutions. Later, while reading contributions from other people from developed countries, the author realized how similar might be some individual undertakings produced by people living in different environments and who do not know or meet each other. In this aspect, the paper is a sort of a tribute to someone who is very close to the author and whom he did not know personally.

The UC Berkeley Melvyl catalogue mentions a working paper written at MIT, when he was assistant professor, entitled ‘Signs in the city: a study by graduate students of urban design in the Department of City and Regional Planning’, 1963; according to UC Berkeley professor Michael Southworth (at that time Appleyard's student at MIT), this paper is a report on a studio project, undertaken by several people, and perhaps it would be more appropriate to classify his first published material as The View from the Road, from MIT Press, published in 1964 (written along with Kevin Lynch and John Meyer).

As seen in the Melvyl catalogue of the UC Berkeley library (www.library.berkeley.edu ).

See, for example, the definition of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, as quoted by McShane & Roess (1990, p. 3): “traffic engineering is that phase of engineering which deals with the planning, geometric design and traffic operations of roads, streets and highways, their networks, terminals, abutting lands, and relationships with other modes of transport”.

The Institute of Transportation Engineers, formerly Institute of Traffic Engineers, is the largest traffic engineering organization of its kind in the world, founded in the USA in 1930. It has been the main source of technical procedures. The most representative and detailed document of the highly developed technical approach is Institute of Transportation Engineers (1976).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eduardo Alca˘ntara De Vasconcellos

Correspondence Address: Eduardo Alca˘ntara de Vasconcellos, Associação Nacional de Transportes Públicos (ANTP), Al. Santos 1000, 7o. andar, 01418–100 São Paulo, Brazil. Email: [email protected]