Saturday, September 5, 2009

Can you spot what is missing here? (Savannah Odonomy Series, no. 2)


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Just follow the cyclists and ride around the park. There are actually several elements missing present in most city grid streets. Warning. Neither Copenhagen nor Portland will be of much help to you here. There is one really obvious element missing (that I will base my next discussion on here). But you may find one missing element or two that I have not thought about. For now, just stay on the loop. Once you think you know the obvious element that is missing, branch out to the next parallel loop of surrounding streets (or alleys) and see another surprise.

The way I was taught to read "great design" in school was to start with what was missing. It always stunned me what other people observed about good design. I hope the same can be true of the blogosphere! Happy sleuthing.

3 comments:

CarFree Stupidity said...

I'll give it a shot...

Signalized intersections for one. Almost no street signs controling the behavior of traffic. Other than cross walks, there is no stripping, and there are also no bike lanes.

Thanks to your comment on Discoverign Urbanism I found info on Monderman, will certainly come in handy in the future.

Eric Orozco said...

Exactly! Savannah's city form is the primary traffic control device. There are only yield signs at most intersections, but these are for out-of-towners. For Monderman, the only signs necessary (maybe) would be the traffic flow arrows (and he would have probably wanted these to be just discreet graphic arrows).

Unknown said...

Was going to say stop lights. But I am late to the party.