Traffic patterns of the 21st century

As I was surfing the internet the other day I came across an interesting article about city planning, and traffic control in the Netherlands. The article "European Cities Do Away With Traffic Signs,(http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html)" it is quite interesting.



In the Netherlands, city planners are removing street signs, traffic lights, no parking signs, and even lane markings. They want all forms of traffic to interact in a more human, less regulated way. They say that all that is bad about traffic is improved with deregulation. Planners say that it forces motorists to be more careful about how they drive and their speed.
I cannot speak from experience but I think I would be a nervous wreck competing with pedestrians, cyclists, runners, old ladies walking at .5mph down the middle of the street,etc. I don't know if I would be able to handle not having lanes, or some sort of regulation at intersections.

I could to deal with the increase in bicycle traffic, but I couldn't deal with people just walking down the middle of the street. This no regulation idea is a terrible Idea. What happens when traffic increases as cities grow, and how would such a lack of regulation work in American cities with grid street patterns? People are not that civilized in America, manners don't exist anymore. I don't think this system could work in an American city.

I am for some deregulation, parking where ever you want for example, but with no regulation and such high population density it would just be a nightmare! Cars wouldn't be very practical on streets who's speed is realistically limited to the top speeds of the slowest user. I would go as far to say that the current automobile could not exist in these types of traffic situations.

What European Planners want us to do is go back to the middle ages. Their cities might be able to handle that, but a Modern Grid street city could not. The photo included in this post is a street scene c. 1910 in Chicago. If you look up American street scene photographs from the turn of the century, it is utter chaos. The streets are jammed with every type of vehicle imaginable and they are literally jammed! These photographs are the strongest evidence against deregulation of traffic.

Our entire road system would have to be rebuilt to allow for such a lack of regulation. In old European cities roads wind, they are not straight, they have narrow alleyways, and few roads. The roads they do have, seem to have a natural flow.

American cities on the other hand, are standardized. They were build with the automobile and bicycle in mind, and were designed to work with the regulation of traffic. Having streets that go North, South, East and West at unregulated intersections would cause traffic jams.

Everyone cannot go every direction at once. That was the point of regulating traffic. I do not think the European planners could import their anarchy to the modern city with much success. If this plan did cross the Atlantic it could only be used in limited areas and it could not be city wide. American cities are not designed to handle traffic like that, it would just result in widespread gridlock.