AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.06.2005, Síða 34

Cities for people, focus on the Traffic in Reykjavík
Dr. Jens Rerbech, former City Engineer of Copenhagen
ln March of this year the Association of Engineers
held a conference at the Grand Hotel where the
traffic in Reykjavík was discussed. Professor,
dr. techn. Jens Rorbech, who has been the
City Engíneer of Copenhagen, was invited as
one of the speakers and the magazine aVs
asked him to contribute his observations and
conclusions about the traffic in the city:
"I visited Reykjavík a few days prior to the conference
to be able to form an opinion of the traffic in the
city. I drove around in the city and the surrounding
area; I used the bus system and strolled around
in the streets of the city. I visited some of the
city officials and although it can only lead to a
superficial impression I all the same formed a
fair impression of the city and the surrounding
area as well as the traffic situation of the city.
This resulted in 10 conclusions:
1. Reykjavík: Just the right size
The amount of services a city can offer its inhabitants
grows naturally - and lineally - according to size. The
greater the number of inhabitants the easier it becomes
to fulfil everyone’s wishes. But the difficulties that are
associated with the growth of the city, particularly
traffic congestion, also increases with the growth of the
city, by a power of at least 2, as a result of reduced
densities.Japanese research shows cities around
2-300,000 to be ideal. In a city of this size everything
can be offered - and the traffic congestion can be solved.
2. Yet Reykjavík has too much car
traffic.
The most important consideration is that traffic level is
very high, perhaps twice the level of Danish cities of
equal size. I also cannot remember having been in a
city where 96% of all trips take place by the private car
as can be seen in the regional plan. On the other hand
there are no substantial traffic problems. I surveyed
the morning traffic for three days at the junction of
Miklabraut and Kringlumýrarbraut where a multi level
traffic interchange has been proposed. It appears to
me that the problems here are rather small and can be
handled by a few traffic-technical actions directed at
the peak flows. The peak traffic hour was soon over.
One should also be aware that a road project which is
carried out can absolutely ruin an area and stays there
all 8760 hours of the year and that there may only
be traffic problems for 500 hours a year. Large road
projects also cost a lot of money. Below I have much
better proposals as to how this should be tackled.
3. Face it: It is difficult to alter the
high use of motorcars.
In many European towns in the 60's and 70's
movements developed to get “cars out of the city”.
I have always liked the English planning professor,
Buchanan, who, in a condensed version said, “In the
city, life is concentrated and as traffic is a consequence
of human activity it is meaningless to talk about cities
without traffic. But a lot can be done to enable cars
and towns to thrive side by side and this should be
our aim.” It is going to be very difficult to change the
high level of private car usage in Reykjavík given the
way the city has developed. But the increase in car
traffic could possibly be stopped by a number of
measures. That will be dealt with in the following points.
4. Parking restrictions.
It appears that the city can do a lot in the way
of reorganizing the supply of parking spaces. In
j
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