Shared space a traffic plan worth trying in Hong Kong

Imagine a street without guard railings, kerbs or traffic signals. Pedestrians, vehicles and even bicyclists weave around another at a leisurely pace. Everyone seems to know where they are going and no one collides. A man with a trolley loaded high with many boxes makes his way through an intersection, while drivers wait for him to cross.

Impossible? Or perhaps some Third World backwater? No, this is shared space, a traffic management concept developed by the Dutch engineer Hans Monderman in the 1990s.

Adopted in towns and cities throughout Europe, shared space rests on the surprising philosophy that in order to make a street safer, you should make it feel more dangerous. Monderman's insight was that accidents happen when drivers go on autopilot at high speeds, following regulations at the expense of paying attention to their surroundings. Then, it is too late when a pedestrian suddenly darts into the road.

Traditionally, traffic engineers dealt with these situations by increasing the separation between pedestrians and vehicles - more railings, more footbridges, fewer street-level crossings.

However, the more pedestrians were corralled and inconvenienced, the more likely they were to engage in dangerous jaywalking.

Shared space reverses this approach. The only rule is "watch out". Street design elements such as decorative paving, benches and trees tell drivers that they can expect to see pedestrians, which prompts them to slow down.

In many places where shared space has been implemented, traffic accident rates declined.