Road Safety in the Context of Urban Development in Sweden and California Road Safety in the Context of Urban Development in Sweden and California
نویسندگان
چکیده
1 Abstract Road Safety in the Context of Urban Development in Sweden and California Road safety is a serious public health issue throughout the world, with more than one million people killed in traffic accidents each year. Despite the severity of its health impacts, the World Health Organization says that traffic safety is a "neglected" topic. Perhaps this is the case in the US, where traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people up to age 34, and where the traffic safety record is one of the worst among high-income countries. Other high-income countries such as Sweden have much better road safety performance. Differences in road safety between countries could be explained by the quality of infrastructure, driving conditions, the culture of driving, or the power of enforcement. Each of these elements is shaped by institutional contexts such as design, planning, and policy-making processes. Moreover, research about other technical systems has shown the powerful effect of organization, norms, and communication on safety. This led me to ask: How do our cultural and professional interpretations of safety influence the way we plan, design, and manage streets? Based on field studies, statistical analysis of crash and injury data, and interviews with practitioners, I found that professionals in California and Sweden share similar ideas about road safety, such as the roles of driver behavior, the road environment, and the vehicle in producing hazards. Professionals in both cases also face similar conflicts in road safety planning, such as whether to provide greater mobility for cars, or to reduce the speed of traffic to prevent injury. These similarities reflect shared professional and disciplinary backgrounds and sources of information, as well as similarities in the issues that municipalities and regions face. The main differences are in the interaction between road safety ideas and larger institutional contexts such as suburban land development. For instance, in the middle of the 20 th century, Sweden created a multi-modal transportation system that accommodated cars as well as transit, pedestrians, and bicyclists—even in the suburbs. A combination of architects, city planners, and transportation engineers supported this development. Multidisciplinary policy communities in Sweden found traction for their safety-oriented designs in the relatively integrated transportation and land use planning system. In the US, such integration was not the norm, and efforts to use design and land use controls to create a safe transportation system often meet resistance from the established institutions …
منابع مشابه
Planning Level Regression Models for Prediction of the Number of Crashes on Urban Arterials in Bangladesh
In most of the developing countries, the metropolitan organizations do not assess the safety consequences of alternative transportation systems and one of the reasons is the lack of suitable methodology. The goal of this paper is to develop practical tools for assessing safety consequences of arterial roads in the context of long-term urban transportation plans in Dhaka city, the capital of Ban...
متن کاملPublic transport risk assessment through fault tree analysis
This study focused on the public transport risk assessment in District one of Tehran through Fault Tree Analysis involving the three criteria of human, vehicle and road in Haddon matrix. In fact, it examined the factors contributing to the occurrence of road accidents at several urban black spots within District 1. Relying on road safety checklists and survey of experts, this study made an ef...
متن کاملInvesting the Impact of Expansion of the Rural-Urban Public Transport System on the Economic and Social Development in Rural Areas in the Eastern Region of Bandpey in Babol County
Purpose: In rural areas of developing countries, lack of facilities and geographical isolation can be considered as the major causes of poverty leading to limited opportunities in achieving sustainable economic and social improvement. Public transport system has a crucial role in the prevention of social and economic exclusion and marginalization of rural and remote areas. Access to public tran...
متن کاملEffects of impervious surfaces and urban development on runoff generation and flood hazard in the Hajighoshan watershed
Urbanization is a pervasive global trend. The development of residential areas and road network in Hajighoshan watershed (northern Iran) has been observed in the recent several decades. The objective of this study is the quantitative investigation of the effects of impervious surfaces development and urban development on runoff generation and flood hazard. The study of urban area development wa...
متن کاملInfluence of road transport quality on urban dwellers’ satisfaction
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The significance of road mobility in any nation cannot be far-fetched or beyond economic purpose, spatial interaction and social integration. It contributes enormously to the livelihood of human existence most especially by facilitating regional complementarity of trade, intervening opportunities, and spatial transferability. The objective of this stu...
متن کامل