Prince Charles: reclaim the streets from cars

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...from-cars.html

Prince Charles: reclaim the streets from cars

The Prince of Wales issues a 10-point architectural 'masterplan' that includes the near-eradication of road signs and a call for pedestrians to reclaim the streets from cars

Prince Charles urges architects to place pedestrians 'at the centre of the design process'

The Prince of Wales has made an impassioned plea for Britain’s streets to be “reclaimed from the car”.

Prince Charles urges architects to place pedestrians “at the centre of the design process” as part of a 10-point “master plan” he has devised for the developments of towns and cities.

He also calls for many street signs to be removed. “Slow” and “Reduce Speed Now” signs, for example, should be taken down and replaced by features such as squares, bends and trees that “naturally” encourage motorists to reduce their speed.

In a 2,000-word essay, Prince Charles returns to one of his hobby horses – modern architecture – to outline his vision, while also warning of the strains put on the planet by “the terrifying prospect” of rapid population growth.

Although he has been widely criticised by fashionable architects, who accuse him of being a fusty reactionary, the Prince insists he is interested only in creating sustainable modern buildings that also draw on tradition.

Writing in the prestigious journal The Architectural Review, the Prince says: “I have lost count of the times that I have been accused of wanting to turn the clock back to some Golden Age.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.

“My concern is the future. We face the terrifying prospect by 2050 of another three billion people on this planet needing to be housed, and architects and urban designers have an enormous role to play in responding to this challenge.

“We have to work out how we will create resilient, truly sustainable and human-scale urban environments that are land efficient, use low carbon materials and do not depend so completely on the car.”

His “masterplan” calls for “the best of the old” to be mixed with “the best of the new”.

Among his 10 principles for sustainable urban design, the Prince calls for the near-eradication of street signs, and highlights innovations used in Poundbury, the experimental new town built on the outskirts of Dorchester on Duchy of Cornwall land.

Apart from the global warming climate change stuff he goes on about, actually agree with him very much when it comes to architecture, town planning and agriculture. He's right not to call for pedestrianisation and getting rid of cars completely from city centres, as it's absolutely killed urban centres off: the city where I go to university is stupid enough to actually want to extend pedestrianisation even though many of the streets are already struggling with empty shops everywhere. Insanity, meanwhile Liverpool has scrapped the stupid bus-only lanes in a (working) effort to get traffic moving rather than causing congestion and cluttering up the streets.

Should read and watch videos about Poundbury, interesting experiment building how English towns used to be built and it looks beautiful. If only the Prince of Wales was incharge of national town planning instead of the idiots who have destroyed so many town centres since the war.

Thoughts?

[scottish]

It's all about the cars.

[FlyingJesus]

Gonna be difficult with all those immigrants on the road getting in the way!

[AgnesIO]

Gonna be difficult with all those immigrants on the road getting in the way!

Near enough impossible, I'd say.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Gonna be difficult with all those immigrants on the road getting in the way!

Not sure he's referring to congested motorways in the south/London due to the population there growing at absurd levels, thanks to uncontrolled immigration.