Designing safer public spaces
Building safer spaces without ‘reinforcing fear’
The chilling image of a vehicle being used as a weapon to attack pedestrians is one that urban designers have taken to heart as something to protect people against, but not with a fortress mentality.
“You need to be aware of (the possibility), you need to understand really what could happen,” said Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University. “It’s how do you build an environment so it doesn’t reinforce fear, it projects a sense of safety.”
That means keeping the terrible possibilities of a deliberate attack in mind, Yan said, but designing urban spaces that increase everyday safety to start with, not just hardening infrastructure against such deliberate attacks.
Monday’s deadly van attack in Toronto that killed 10 and injured 14 was the latest in a seemingly increasing list starting with the July, 2016 attack in Nice, France in which a transport truck was driven into the crowd on a popular promenade killing 84 and injuring dozens. Recent events have included the Oct. 31, 2017, truck ramming in New York that killed eight and injured 12, and a Sept. 30, 2017, incident in Edmonton that injured four.
“It’s one of those things (where design works) best when you don’t notice it,” Yan, said. “Or when you do notice it, you feel safe,” instead of feeling like being inside a target zone.
It can be as simple as designing public spaces that deliberately separate pedestrian routes from streets or where parked cars can act as a barrier between streets and sidewalks, Yan said.
Being in New York after the events of 9/11 is where Yan saw examples of protection measures put in place that magnified a sense of fear instead of instilling a sense of security. “The federal buildings were surrounded with these Jersey barriers, massive concrete barriers that are typically used on highways to keep people from running off the road,” Yan said.
Over time, however, Yan said urban design has improved to replace those barriers with bollards, street furniture or public art, “but with that underlying concern over safety.”
In Vancouver, the city doesn’t want to create a “fortress-like public realm,” said Jerry Dobrovolny, general manager of engineering services.
“Safety related to intentional attacks is one of the considerations we take,” Dobrovolny said, “but it’s not the only consideration and not the overriding consideration.”
Dobrovolny said the placement of planters and street furniture on the redesigned north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery is one example. The benches and planters enhance it as a public space, but also act as barriers.
Even Vancouver’s dedicated cycling lanes, which are protected by planters or concrete dividers, also act as barriers between cars and sidewalks, Dobrovolny said.
Outside of public spaces and along traffic routes, Dobrovolny said the city has looked more toward bollards as a way to contain vehicles and protect pedestrians.
This has breathed new life into at least one local company.
Manufacturing bollards has become about 80 per cent of Surreybased Reliance Foundry ’s business over the last 16 years, said company vice-president Brad Done.
“It’s taken over our business, for sure, in a good way,” said Done, whose firm, founded in 1925, now sells 10,000 to 20,000 bollards per year. Done traces the increased interest in bollards back to 9/11. One of his company’s first big commissions was to provide decorative covers for bollards being put in place to protect a historic post office building in New York.
And while the company might have once turned out two or three new designs per year, Done said Reliance now has hundreds of models for architects and designers to choose from.
Done said there are three segments to the bollard business: Mainly decorative posts to mark pathways or traffic patterns, harder barriers to protect things like storefronts or gas pumps, and engineered, high-impact barriers to protect strictly against terrorist attacks.