Preliminary communication
Social and Planned Treating of Traffic in Town
Zorislav Perković
; Urbanistički zavod grada Zagreba Zagreb, Proleterskih brigada 45
Abstract
Criticism of specialized, professional and quasi-rational approach to the planning of traffic in towns has been revealed in the following article. Traffic problems are among the greatest ones in towns all over the word, with all the consequences resulting from the influence of traffic upon a town as a social community (from ecological problem to degradation of man in the town). The most important moment for us seemed to be establishing and describing certain valuable tendencies and aims, present nowadays, when the problem of traffic in town is being considered. Representatives of progress and higher standard (booming life rate, business etc.) adapt themselves to the present situation of total motorization, accepting all that as »a tribute to civilization, progress etc.«, and the opposite valuable orientation might be called humanitarian-aesthetic (its protagonists do not appreciate very much, the modern »rate« of living; they are skeptical when benefits of technical progress are in question, and they consider car as being chiefly unnecessary in a town).
Conflict between the car owners and those without a car, is considered to be the basic problem, and the consequences of such a relationship have been analysed: conflicts in the interests of motorists and non-motorists, emphasizing of the existing forms of social inequality, conflicts between the public and individual traffic etc. Analyzing traffic, and concrete conditions of the society, we come to state that the basic procedure in planning the traffic should be the choice between the possible actions, meaning, of course, political decision, and its criteria in a socialist society should be rational and humane. By comparison between the personal consumption of inhabitants (for private cars), and social consumption for the public traffic, irrationality in the planning of traffic comes to light.
Concluding the article, we ask for a valuable change of relations in the traffic planning, considering that common-sense and wide social judgement should precede professional principles and norms. Restricting the private car traffic without compensation, the existing relations could be changed in favour of the public traffic, implicating thus a total change in the traffic policy.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
156287
URI
Publication date:
31.12.1975.
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