The streets and spaces that constitute the majority of our public realm play an increasingly important role in the economic and social foundations of towns and cities. Simultaneously, public dissatisfaction with the clutter and barriers associated with conventional traffic engineering is growing. There is also growing recognition of the links between health and the quality of the built environment. New approaches to reconciling the relationship between traffic and the public realm represent a significant challenge to long-standing assumptions underpinning the conventional segregation of traffic from civic space associated with established policy and practice. Often labelled 'shared space', such schemes raise important questions about risk and safety, the role of government in regulating and controlling behaviour and the conventional professional boundaries of urban designers and traffic engineers. A radical review of the role of government in regulating and controlling street design, combined with decisive changes in the organisational structure and processes employed by highway authorities is implied if the benefits for safety, traffic capacity, health and economic vitality from shared space are to be realised. This paper outlines the background and principles underpinning shared space, and describes some of the significant examples in the UK and mainland Europe.
