Innovative street design in a city without freeways: the case of Vancouver

ABSTRACT

Vancouver has no freeways and is considered highly walkable. To move traffic on streets but retain pedestrian friendliness, the city uses pedestrian activated half signals where minor streets intersect arterials, involving signal lights for the arterials and stop signs for the minor streets. Having both controls at an intersection is discouraged by widely adopted traffic engineering standards because of the complexity it creates. Inspired by ‘safety in complexity’ literature, this paper presents research exploring how these ‘multi-controlled’ intersections are deployed and work in practice, and their safety records. Findings suggest they are not unsafe and users adapt to their complexity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.