lake shore woonerf, toronto, ontario
gardiner expressway is running on top of lake shore boulevard, along the lake ontario shore, parallel to the railway trucks. small city airport is nearby on one of the islands in the harbour and airplanes are very frequent. main downtown residential area is in the other side of the tracks and large supermarket centre and harbourfront art and entertaining centre closer to the lake, so there is a lot of pedestrian traffic here too.

there is one significant manipulation done to this panoramic image. can you guess what it is?

this site is naked, all the traffic regulating signs are removed, as our contribution to the one of the most revolutionary ideas in contemporary urban planning, initiative called woonerf, or shared space, or naked street, or home zones.

idea is to introduce traffic calming zones by removing all traffic signs, lights, markings, signage and barriers, reducing the normal implied priority given to motor traffic, reintroducing eye contact between all the participants. social contact and self control instead of restrictions, as shown by trials all over europe, are showing significant reduction in traffic frequency, speed, noise and injuries. of course we do not think that this idea is realistic in this particular transportation jam but implemented in mixed urban residential areas is showing that it is one of the very few things we can do to bring back to health our aging cities.

ps. can you guess how many traffic regulating elements visible from the spot are removed from this panorama? 15? 30? wrong, there were 85 of them?!?!?!