WHEN transport expert Paul Barter walks through some small streets in HDB estates, the scene reminds him of the small towns and villages in Europe.
People on foot and on bicycles are crossing the streets and cars slow down for them.
"There's no shouting. You make eye contact," says Professor Barter from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Indeed, the scene reflects a new thinking among European transport planners.
It is called the shared space concept, and he looks forward to it being introduced extensively here.
Essentially, it involves stripping a street bare of traffic lights, road signs and kerbs. People are free to roam or ride bicycles, and for the less mobile elderly, travel in a motorised wheelchair.
In this less predictable surrounding with no clear signs of who has right of way, motorists automatically become more wary and slow down.
This was one outcome when the concept was put into practice in Friesland province in the Netherlands. It has spread to various towns in Britain and other European nations such as Austria and Denmark.
But the greatest benefit is that it can lead to more people taking public transport, says Prof Barter. "It's so much more attractive to use the bus or the train if you can easily cross the road, and take a pleasant walk to get there."
Also, when Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, as head of road safety in the 1980s, tested the concept in Friesland, it reduced road accidents and long lines of cars at traffic lights.
Says Prof Barter: "The key to sharing is speed: If you get the speed low enough, you can actually share."
He believes Singapore can slow traffic to 30kmh, from the current 50kmh, on streets in HDB estates or smaller roads in the city centre like Killiney Road.
These are streets where motorists start or end their journey, heading to or coming from a road carrying more and faster-moving vehicles.
Another group that will gain from slower speeds is cyclists, who now occupy either footpaths where they risk hitting pedestrians, or roads where they may be hit by cars whizzing by.
Says Prof Barter, a cyclist himself: "If the traffic is going at 30kmh, we can suddenly fit bicycles in."
