OBE-3 Le Corbusier's Traffic for Minneapolis, please.
Le Corbusier hits on every aspect of design of modern cities that would either improve them or already exist and work wonderfully. Though his designs definitely come from an artistic mind, which he had, I think that the particular aspects of traffic he presents, if feasible, would be delightful. I find traffic to be a major problem with excruciating consequences in modern cities, such as Minneapolis, which would have been solved had the Swissman had his say in the development of our system.
After nearly being killed while riding my bike back from night class, I was glad to hear someone agreeing that “crossroads are an enemy to traffic” (p321). They are far too frequent, causing congestion, constant stopping, and to me, another chance for any of four people to make a mistake and hit me. The distance of 400 yards that he suggests for an urban grid-system, separating each block, is good in that even though it may be a relatively long ways to get to those buildings in the middle of each block compared with our cities, it really is not a very long way and people need to be able to walk that and perhaps we’ll become a bit fitter society. This layout would be much simpler and decongested, take more advantage of space, and be appropriate for the physical capabilities of humans.
The two other aspects of Le Corbusian cities that are so frustrating about being inexistent in Minneapolis is the idea of great axes, and the classification of types of traffic, leading to their separation. Commuting from suburbs is a very significant part of modern cities, radio and television stations have traffic reports for people heading to and from downtown areas to let them know the traffic conditions during rush hour because so many people are affected. Usually, its up to the driver to pick their poison cause every highway is somehow congested or blocked by one little accident, usually from merging. This would have to be solved by the great axes from Le Corbusier. In Minneapolis’ metro area, there are major highways crossing eachother seemingly every few miles and during rush hour they are all packed and oversensitive to weather and accidents. Helping lessen the occurance of accidents and sensitivity to them, as well as acting as a decongestant, these axes will have less merging difficulty with flowing loops, and be super wide. It’s like a roomy first class airplane seat versus coach. This system would be speedier, generally speaking, and divide the city into sections and be great reference points of location.
Everyone has been upset at one point or another with driving around/behind a semi-truck. That type of nonsense would never occur if Le Corbusier was able to classify and separate heavy goods, lighter goods, and fast traffic. Separating heavy trucking traffic and the area they do drop off’s from lighter traffic makes each more efficient and prevents conflict between the two as well. By people having to drive toward their nearest entrance to a great axes, they would also have more of a reason to save gas and take the tubes. The choices having less differentiation would make a great balance between two and have far more continuous traffic condtions.
The last thing that makes me completely agree with Le Corbusier with respect to Minneapolis is the fact that he wishes no city to be built directly on a river, only near. While many people may appreciate it, I think it is confusing with all of the different bridgework, angling streets, dead ends because of the water, and winding roads. I can’t possibly be the only whose gotten lost driving around the Mississippi and wished things were simpler and squared off.
Though I won’t be surprised if anyone finds my belief in Le Corbusier’s theories ridiculously impractical, and/or expensive, I think that you get what you pay for. To rebuild a city like Paris which has been the way it is for incredibly long is impossible and too expensive. In the very developmental stages of a modern city, however, I firmly believe designing a traffic layout according to Le Corbusier’s plan would be an investment that pays off as everyone wants to visit and live there, and it could start a trend.
Comments
Nice points Nick. It's nice to have a Le Corbusiean in our midst. If we never dare to dream, we are just perpetuating the status quo.
Posted by: Greg | March 1, 2007 06:06 PM