In an urban area,
what is a road?
That seems like a straightforward question, but the answer can actually be quite complicated.
So apparently in the past, roads were ‘links’. They were a means of getting vehicles from one place to another. What went on around the roads didn’t matter so much as what went through the roads.
But that ignores the fact that roads are spaces and places where things happen.
People walk beside the roads and the design of the roads and the area around the roads affect how pedestrians use the place and space.
Sometimes vehicles stop by the road. They are not so interested in getting through the road, as getting to the road. So like Exhibition Road, the big tourist buses aren’t interested in getting through Exhibition Road. No, their destination is Exhibition Road itself.
So while roads are sometimes vital links connecting places, roads sometimes function as important places to be. The connectivity becomes less important as the accessibility of that road as a destination. And the importance of the vehicle, in particular the private car, gives way to other users like pedestrians or even public transport users.
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I admit I get pretty annoyed by the works being carried out on Exhibition Road, but the idea of it is fascinating. They’ve put in at least 2 new Barclays docking spot on that stretch of road, which will invariably encourage cycling by both university students and tourists, since that place is such a touristy area.
They’ve put up these nice wooden benches with hand rests at the side (to prevent hobos from sleeping on them) along the road, just outside the museums. They face both the road and the science museum.
The texture of the whole street is the same, meaning that the portion that is the road, has the same tiles and pattern as the pedestrian bit. Normally, you know where the road ends and the pavement start, just by looking at the colour and texture of the road, but on Exhibition Road, it is just one homogenous design.
I like too how the road is much more narrow, but with sufficient space on the sides such that big tourist buses can parked alongside the road without disrupting either vehicular traffic or pedestrian flow.
Can’t wait for everything to be set up and the scaffolds to be removed. It must look incredibly amazing.
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At the top of my head, I will say that Singapore’s not very good with the idea of shared spaces for competing types of transport modes, much less shared spaces for both mobility and activities.
That said, we do have such great urban plans that such creative use of space may not even be necessary after all.
Looking at the ordinary 