The usability of public spaces: dangerous pedestrian crossing

Every weekday, walking from my house to the Amsterdam Centraal train station, I cross De Ruyterkade, the street that runs along the northern side of the station, the “IJ side.” That street is a simple 2-lane, speed is limited to 30 km/h, and on the water side, there’s also a double bike lane.

This area of the station is undergoing major construction work, but speed bumps were recently added on the bike lanes, on either side of the pedestrian crossing, presumably to reduce collisions between bikes and pedestrians. Seeing people negotiate the bumps, I was struck by the idea they might actually have further reduced safety.

The previous situation was not very safe: at peak times, large numbers of pedestrians are attempting to cross the street from and into the station. This area is a small ferry terminal, and the arrival of a boat, every few minutes, generates a pack of people all trying to cross at the same time, and not always very aware of the bike traffic.

Also, the crossing is located in the middle of a long straight stretch that encourages cyclists to increase their speed. While the Dutch are quite bike-literate, people aren’t fully awake, and sometimes don’t pay enough attention. I witnessed a number of near-hits, with people suddenly shouting out warnings, swerving or stopping at the last minute, furiously ringing their bells, etc.

In other places of the country, local authorities have tried to remove explicit traffic signage and guidance to enhance individual responsibility. Lowering indications increases the perception of danger, and thereby encourages people to slow down of their own accord, and to actually look at the situation and react accordingly.

Here, perhaps authorities believe that the people involved in the flows are less likely to pay attention: immediate pressure of train schedules, dulled senses because of the routine aspect of the commute, low context awareness of people about to undertake a journey (to the airport, for example), necessity to pay attention to two distinct flows of traffic (bikes and cars) coming in both directions… Or perhaps they just applied a simple safety recipe, without thinking too much (this entire area is work in progress, after all).

Whatever the motive, the choice was made to increase environmental guidance for the bikes, by adding two speed bumps on either side of the crossing. The situation has not changed for pedestrians.

Yesterday, I noticed a cyclist trying to negotiate the speed bumps: eyes lowered to look at the road. He was definitely slowing down, but only because the road was requiring him to, not because he wanted to give himself more room to deal with the flow of pedestrians.

Actually, with his eyes down, he did not notice someone who, in a hurry to catch a train to the airport, did not pay enough attention to oncoming traffic while walking across the bike lane, his eyes on the red light. They barely avoided a collision.

If the speed bump does work in reducing the speed of bikes, it would probably work better a few meters removed from the pedestrian crossing so the cyclist’s lowered attention due to the bump does not occur at the same time he’s expected to pay attention to oncoming foot traffic.

Also, helping pedestrians pay more attention to bikes would help. This could be done by increasing the space between the bike lane and the road, so people can focus on each obstacle separately, rather than to try to negotiate both at the same time (and failing, perhaps because pedestrians are–rightly–more afraid of cars, and therefore pay more attention to them).

The idea of removing all markings is interesting, and it might make the area nicer: at the moment, this is a high-tension area, where different flows of people compete to dominate public space. People would perhaps have more eye contact, and behave in a less threatening fashion.