The Aesthetic Experience of Traffic in the Modern City

Urban Studies, Vol. 40, No. 8, 1609–1625, July 2003

The Aesthetic Experience of Trafﬁc in the Modern City

Nigel Taylor

[Paper ﬁrst received, July 2002; in ﬁnal form, December 2002]

Summary. In spite of the ubiquity of the motor vehicle in modern cities, there has been relatively little study of its impact on our experience of urban life. After summarising the most significant objectively visible impacts of the motor vehicle on urban form, this article offers a phenomenological analysis and account of our aesthetic experience of road traffic, from the points of view of people both inside motor vehicles as drivers or passengers, and outside vehicles as pedestrians or cyclists. Two aspects of our aesthetic experience are described: our sensory experience of traffic, and then how traffic is experienced cognitively, or at the level of meaning. The article identifies various ways in which ‘automobility’ has come to dominate our contemporary aesthetic experience of cities.

1. The Aesthetic Experience of the Modern City, and Road Traffic This paper examines the nature of our aes- modern cities are (or have been) actually thetic experience of road traffic as part of our experienced and, relatedly and more practi- aesthetic experience of the contemporary city cally, what part urban design might play in in general. It attempts to illuminate the main improving the quality of urban environments. features of our experience of urban road Some of this writing has come out of the traffic from the point of view of people mov- recently emergent fields of cultural studies ing about the city, both people inside motor and cultural geography, where writers have vehicles as drivers or passengers, and people been concerned to capture important features outside motor vehicles as pedestrians or cy- of people’s actual, lived experience of the clists. In doing this, it is hoped to demon- modern city (for example, Wilson, 1991). strate how central our aesthetic experience of Some of the new writing sits within the traffic is to our general aesthetic experience tradition of town planning and urban design, of the modern city. But first a word on the and exhibits a renewal of interest in ques- context for, and justification of, the topic. tions of urban design which had once been central to town planning but which, for about 20 years following the late 1960s, were mar- 1.1 Theoretical Context ginalised by social scientific conceptions of Over the past decade, there has been a re- planning (for example, Punter and Carmona, surgence of attention from writers in the 1997). Both these literatures are welcome fields of urban studies and planning to how because, on the one hand, how people (in-

Nigel Taylor is in the School of Planning and Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK. Fax: 0117 344 3002. E-mail: [email protected].

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/03/081609–17  2003 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000094450 1610 NIGEL TAYLOR cluding different groups of people differently specifically motor traffic, in the modern city. situated) perceive, experience and respond to The relative dearth of writing on this topic is the urban places which they inhabit or visit all the more remarkable given that a central must be a central concern of urban studies; feature of most people’s experience of mod- and, on the other hand, how urban places are ern cities (including a central source of their shaped and designed has to be a central tension, frustration and anger when they are concern of urban planning, and precisely be- moving about cities) is their experience of cause the form and design of places affects traffic, whether as drivers or passengers in people’s experience of them, and whether motor vehicles, or as pedestrians or cyclists that experience is felt as congenial and even seeking to negotiate the urban environment uplifting, or, alternatively, unpleasant and between motor vehicles. Indeed, it is not too alienating. far-fetched to suggest that the experience of Not all this recent writing is concerned road traffic is the most salient aspect of specifically with the aesthetic experience and people’s experience of the external urban design of places, but the aesthetic component environment. In spite of this, as Sheller and (broadly construed) has been a part of this Urry have observed new literature. Thus, in examining people’s experience of cities, there has been a re- The social sciences have generally ignored newed focus on people’s sensory experience, the motor car and its awesome conse- and the sought-for concreteness and actuality quences for social life. … It has been pre- of sensory experience are shown by the in- sumed that the movement, noise, smell, creasing references to the body (even the visual intrusion and environmental hazards ‘flesh’) and the city (for example, Sennett, of the car are largely irrelevant to deci- 1994). This, too, is welcome—for the subject phering the nature of city life (Sheller and of aesthetics has sometimes been regarded as Urry, 2000, pp. 737 and 738). a rather abstract, esoteric enquiry into mat- ters of refined taste and sensibility, and thus To be sure, the ecological impact of road of interest only to aesthetes, not the general traffic (through, for example, the emission of public. However, as Terry Eagleton (1990) greenhouse gases) has been a central topic of notes in his historical account of aesthetics, concern and investigation, and especially, of when in the 18th century the aesthetic dimen- course, with respect to recent debates about sion of human life emerged in philosophy as achieving environmentally ‘sustainable de- a subject for systematic enquiry, it suggested velopment’ (see, for example, Banister and something down-to-earth, even subversive. Button, 1993; Banister, 1998; OECD, 1988; For the study of the aesthetic promised to Whitelegg, 1993). Clearly, this aspect of the attend to people’s lived, sensual experience impact of motor vehicles is absolutely central of the world, and this focus contrasted with to the project of creating environmentally the dominant tradition of 18th-century phi- more friendly and sustainable urban settle- losophy which had emphasised the cerebral ments and ways of life. Indeed, the challenge qualities of human reason, deliberation and of creating environmentally sustainable cities scientific investigation, directed at the dis- is now widely seen as one of combatting the covery of objective, impersonal, disembod- massive use of the private motor car, and ied truths about the world. getting people into buses, trams or trains, This paper sits within this tradition of or—even better—onto their feet or bicyles. writing about people’s aesthetic, sensory ex- But aside from these crucial environmental perience of the world. However, it attends to concerns, there is a dearth of literature on the an aspect of urban sensory experience which impact of road traffic on people’s actual sen- has received surprisingly little attention from sory experience of urban environments—on cultural and urban theorists—namely, peo- what it actually feels like to be outside and ple’s aesthetic experience of traffic, and moving about modern cities dominated by THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1611 motor vehicles.1 This is the topic examined attention as we move about the city. The in this paper. aesthetic attention that can be given to the surrounding urban environment is therefore correspondingly diminished, making our ex- 1.2 Structure and Chief Claims of Paper perience of it all the more blurred and The paper begins, in the next section, by fleeting. Fourthly, the speed and density of clarifying more precisely what is taken to be road traffic in the modern city make our the aesthetic component of human experi- experience of the external urban environment ence of places, and also what will be con- both (paradoxically) hyperactive and monot- sidered under the heading of ‘traffic’. In onous. Thus, on the one hand, the constant section3abrief summary is presented of the movement and speed of road traffic on urban impact which the increase in motor traffic streets (together with its potential danger) has had on the aesthetic form of cities over turn our experience of moving about the city the past half-century. Section 4 offers an into one of continual sensory stimulation and analysis of the main characteristics of peo- cognitive activity and, to this extent, our ple’s sensory experience of road traffic, ex- aesthetic experience of the trafficked city is amining this both from the point of view of hyperactive (contrasting with a more pedestrians and cyclists (i.e. the point of reflective, even meditative mode of aesthetic view of citizens when they are not in motor perception which was possible in the past, vehicles and, therefore, when they are, liter- before road traffic became so dominant, hec- ally, outside in the city), and of people inside tic and dangerous). On the other hand, the motor vehicles, either as drivers, or as pas- high density of road traffic in the modern city sengers in cars or public transport vehicles causes it to be often congested and slow- (buses, trams, etc.). Section 5 offers an moving. In these circumstances, we are still analysis of some of the main characteristics obliged to attend to it (because of its poten- of people’s cognitive experience of road tial danger), but this repetitive attention to traffic—and again from the points of view of essentially the same phenomenon can numb people outside or inside vehicles. our sensibilities, making our aesthetic experi- The observations made in the last section ence correspondingly dull and monotonous are perhaps the most important in the paper, (and so unstimulating and not hyperactive). for they issue in four claims about the way Taken together, these points indicate how people’s aesthetic experience and sensibility our experience of road traffic has come to in the modern city have been shaped by the dominate our aesthetic experience of much increase in road traffic over the past half- of the city in general—so much so that to century. These claims are summarised here at understand our aesthetic experience of road the outset. First, for people travelling on the traffic in the modern city is in large measure road, and especially for those driving motor to understand our aesthetic experience of the vehicles, the aesthetic experience of the mod- modern city, period. ern city has become one characterised by signs as much as spaces. Secondly, people’s 2. Terms of Reference: On ‘Aesthetic experience of observing and moving amongst Experience’ Generally, and ‘Traffic’ motor vehicles is an essentially depersonalised experience because (understandably) Central to our aesthetic experience of the people typically observe moving motor vehi- world is our sensory experience of places. cles primarily as inanimate objects and only However, to equate aesthetic experience secondarily as objects containing other peo- solely with sensory experience can be too ple. Accordingly, people’s experience of oth- simple, for we are thinking as well as sensing ers in the city has become increasingly creatures, and therefore our sensory experi- depersonalised. Thirdly, because of its poten- ence of the world is often infused with tial danger, road traffic demands our alert thoughts about what we are sensing. As 1612 NIGEL TAYLOR

Gregory (1970) put it, our eye is an ‘intelli- Although people’s meaningful, cognitive gent’ eye. In this respect, aesthetic experi- perception of places is intertwined with their ence is cognitive as well as sensory. To take sensory experience in the manner just de- a simple example: if I see a small gold elipse scribed, it is possible to distinguish conceptu- on the road, I have the thought that this disc ally between these two aspects of aesthetic is money alongside the sensation of a gold experience and judgement; as the examples disc. Although I would not conclude that I given show, some sensory experience is usu- had seen a coin without first having the ally a precondition of the cognitive dimen- relevant sensation, in actual experience these sion of aesthetic experience. Therefore, for two aspects of perception are usually so the purposes of clarity of exposition, the closely intermeshed that they are typically distinction between these two aspects of our experienced as conjoined. aesthetic perception will be retained in this The dual (but conjoined) nature of our paper, which will offer (in section 4) an perception of the world explains why the account of some of the salient features of our objects and places we experience in the sensory experience of traffic before going on world are invested with symbolic content or (in section 5) to suggest some of the more ‘meaning’. For example, when I see a certain general features of people’s cognitive re- kind of red double-decker bus I see more sponse to and experience of traffic. than just a red bus; I see a London bus and As regards ‘traffic’, obviously this could this cognition then generates a host of mem- cover a multitude of different modes of ories and associations I have of London. My movement (buses, trams, trains, metros, mo- sensory perception of a London bus is thus tor bikes, motor scooters, rickshaws, etc.). coupled with thoughts and reflections which However, this paper concentrates primarily make it a meaningful experience. It follows on motor vehicle traffic—the traffic of motor from this that our aesthetic evaluation of cars, buses and trucks—because this has be- objects and places is also often not simply come the dominant mode of transport in most deterministically governed by our response large cities in the world and it is also this to certain sensations. To cite another exam- traffic which is ecologically most damaging ple, the hornet-like whine made by a lam- and so most relevant to current concern about bretta is not the kind of sound which I the environmental impact of transport. usually sense with pleasure. Yet if I hear a Lambretta, it can remind me of some Italian towns, the streets of which echo to the sound 3. The Impact of Motor Traffic on Visible of people riding on scooters. And because I Urban Form love Italy, this sound which I would otherwise find objectionable can generate some Since the end of the Second World War, and pleasing reflections for me, and so elicit a especially since the beginning of the 1960s more favourable aesthetic response. Nor when car ownership markedly increased, the need such associative responses to the mean- visible impact of motor traffic on cities in the ing of traffic be as personal and idiosyncratic developed world has been enormous. Ar- as the example just given. Since certain guably, it has been the most significant factor forms of traffic are particular to certain in the transformation of contemporary urban places (the red double-decker bus in London, form and hence in the transformation of the the metro in Paris, the tram in Amsterdam), aesthetic character of contemporary cities. different people can share similar aesthetic As Sheller and Urry observe experiences of and responses to the distinc- tive traffic of different cities. Thus many Large areas of the globe now consist of people, not just me, would be annoyed if the car-only environments … About one-quar- ‘dear old’ red London bus were replaced by ter of the land in London and nearly one- (say) green buses, or white dormobiles. half of that in LA is devoted to car-only THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1613

environments. And they then exert an awe- tion of new roads, including, of course, the some spatial and temporal dominance over modern concrete motorway or expressway. surrounding environments, transforming In this process, numerous other, older roads what can be seen, heard, smelt and even have been unrecognisably ‘up-graded’ by tasted (Sheller and Urry, 2000, p. 746). road widening and/or transformation into dual carriageways. Thirdly, the increase in More concretely, cities have become motor traffic has required the injection into encrusted with ramps and overpasses, the urban scene of a forest of road signs and bridges and tunnels, expressways and by other urban furniture (such as street lighting) passes, roundabouts and ‘gyratories’. to guide and control motor traffic. Fourthly, Hemmed in by this physical infrastructure to accommodate the parking of cars at work- of mobility, urban architecture has become places, shopping centres and other places of a function of movement (Sheller and Urry, assembly, significant tracts of cities which 2000, p. 740). once housed other uses and buildings have been given over to car parks, either in the So, before examining how the increase in form of concrete multistorey structures or road traffic is experienced aesthetically, it is spaces set aside at ground level for a sea of worth summarising the main types of visible cars. change to the modern urban environment (or These four things make up the new visible to modern urban form) which the advent and objects or forms which have appeared in the increasing use of the motor vehicle have urban landscape as a result of the increase in brought about over the past half-century. motor traffic over the past half-century. But This summary relates particularly to British in addition to these must be added a fifth cities, although cities throughout the world visible transformation in urban form which have been subject to much the same changes has been largely caused by the increasing set out here. reliance on ‘automobility’ (as Sheller and First, and most obviously, there is the Urry aptly term it)—namely, the general dis- visible impact of motor vehicles themselves. persal of urban activities and forms which As compared with cities half a century ago, the relative flexibility of the motor vehicle as the visible urban scene has been transformed a mode of transport has permitted. The resi- simply by the number of motor vehicles dential suburb of the interwar years was the filling the streets. Thus the traditional geo- first manifestation of this increasingly decen- metry and spatial form of the street, with its tralised urban form and its most recent mani- juxtaposition of ground and wall, is now festation are the so-called ‘edge cities’ interrupted by rows of parked and moving described by Garreau (1991). As Fishman metallic objects. The visual intrusion of the (1987) has recounted, the traditional suburb motor vehicle into the urban scene, which the was primarily a residential district which re- Buchanan report Traffic in Towns (Buchanan tained a symbiotic relationship with a central et al., 1963) worried about over 30 years ago, city simply because most of the people who has become a visual fact about the contem- inhabited the suburbs commuted to the host porary city, such that in no city is it now city to work, shop or take their leisure. How- possible to look at the urban scene without ever, the forces of decentralisation unleashed the visual distraction of these moving or by the motor vehicle have, over the past stationary metallic objects (except, of course, half-century, given rise to new kinds of sub- in old Venice and the few other places spe- urban development accommodating the full cially cordoned off from the car). Secondly, range of urban land uses traditionally found in order to accommodate this increase in in the central areas of cities (offices, shops, motor vehicles, the past half-century has wit- entertainment and leisure centres, etc.). nessed the transformation of great swathes of These new urban places are thus more inde- cities, and the countryside, by the construc- pendent of the original host city; they func- 1614 NIGEL TAYLOR tion as cities in their own right, albeit cities 4.1 Phenomenological Analysis of the Gen- which are a spread-out, low-density, ‘non- eral Features of Urban Sensory Experience place urban realm’ (Webber, 1964). The aesthetic character of the modern city Although this paper draws on some empirical has therefore been transformed over the past research into people’s perception and experi- 50 years by the increasing reliance on the ence of road traffic, the account offered here motor vehicle as the main mode of urban derives primarily from an analysis of those transport. Further, the foregoing summarises constituents of sensory experience which are only the impact of the motor vehicle on the necessarily present to any sensorily attentive visible form and character of cities. But person when they are moving in or amongst clearly, urban inhabitants do not just see the road traffic (in a moment, some qualifications omnipresent motor vehicle and the trans- will be noted which need to be made in formation it has brought to the urban scene; generalising about the sensory experiences of the ubiquity of motor traffic is everywhere ‘any’ person).2 The method employed is heard and smelt in the contemporary city and therefore that of the analytical philosopher the noise of traffic, in particular, constitutes a rather than the empirical social scientist, and further major transformation in the quality of what is presented here might be described as urban life over the past half-century. As a phenomenological analysis of the human Maddison et al. note experience of road traffic in the modern city, in the tradition of such writers on urban Due to the growth in road transport, si- experience as Bachelard (1958/94) and Nor- lence is becoming an increasingly scarce berg-Schulz (1980, 1996). commodity in our towns and cities. UK Some qualifications need to be noted con- noise levels have been measured on a reg- cerning generalisations about the sensory ex- ular basis only since 1986. It appears that perience of people (i.e. of any ‘typical’ road transport is the main source of noise person). Although the same array of sense pollution by a considerable margin. There data (or possible objects of sensation) may be are few locations which are not now presented to any person travelling through afflicted by noise generated by road trans- the city, different people’s actual experience port (Maddison et al., 1996, p. 84). of this sensory material can (and usually does) vary to a degree. For what actual peo- In speaking of noise, one inevitably comes to ple actually experience is not mechanically how motor traffic has affected our perceptual determined—not simply ‘given’—by the experience of contemporary cities. It is there- available sense data. Thus although, on the fore to the nature of this experience that the one hand, one can (in principle) generalise rest of this paper now turns. about the sense data that are objectively present for people to sense, on the other hand these data can be, as it were, ‘filtered’ in 4. The Aesthetic Experience of Traffic: varying ways by the relevant people them- l. Sensory Perception selves. It has already been noted how our In this section, an attempt is made to describe thinking, cognitive selves shape and ‘inter- the most salient features of human sensory fere with’ given sense perceptions. Thus a experience of road traffic, from the point of person with a particular knowledge of or view of people both inside motor vehicles as interest in motor vehicles will attend to and drivers or passengers, and as pedestrians or see things in traffic which someone without cyclists moving about cities outside motor this knowledge or interest will not. Two vehicles. However, it begins, in the following other important filtering variables, identified sub-section, with an explanation of the by empirical research in psychology and so- method of analysis which informs this ac- ciology, are important to acknowledge here.3 count. First, people’s sensory responses to given THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1615 sense data are significantly affected by their competing with motor vehicles for the same expectations and, relatedly, adaptation mech- road space. English cyclists thus typically anisms (see, for example, Appleyard, 1981, experience an especial pleasure and relief at pp. 36–40). As a result of having developed cycling in the Netherlands whilst, corre- different expectations and adaptations, differ- spondingly, Dutch cyclists find cycling in ent people develop and internalise different English urban conditions acutely stressful, strategies for dealing with given sense data even terrifying. and, in particular, for coping with sensory If the kinds of variabilities in sensory per- material which they might otherwise find ception just noted were such as to render unpleasantly distracting. Thus people who irrelevant what is, objectively, in people’s have grown accustomed to living in and sensory field, then the kind of phenomeno- moving around heavily trafficked cities nat- logical analysis presented here could not get urally tend to develop an expectation of per- off the ground. But whilst it is important to ceiving and dealing with traffic as a ‘normal’ acknowledge the kinds of variation in sen- part of their everyday environment and, in sory experience noted above, it is also im- consequence, they also adapt to this environ- portant to recognise that all people subject to ment by, for example, screening out from the same sensory material will usually regis- their immediate attention the continual noise ter that material to some degree and thus of traffic which is present to their senses. By share some sensory experiences in common. contrast, a person unused to a modern Thus, although people in poorer communities trafficked city would typically not have de- inhabiting parts of the city constantly in- veloped the same expectations of this en- vaded by heavy traffic may, to a degree, vironmental norm, nor the same adaptability adapt to and ‘get used to’ living in a to deal with it. trafficked environment, they typically only Secondly, people’s sensory experience can achieve this ‘to a degree’; they still register vary between different social and cultural the sights, smells and sounds (not to mention groups as a result of variations in social the dangers) of their heavily trafficked en- conditioning and cultural attitudes. In fact, vironment and—if given the opportunity— varying sensory experiences resulting from they express their views about it in no different expectations and adaptation mecha- uncertain terms. As Appleyard (1981) nisms just noted will often themselves reflect showed in his classic study of streets in ‘deeper’ variations in social and cultural con- America, the presence of road traffic and its ditioning. Thus, poorer people trapped in attendant effects were viewed by people right run-down inner-city areas in which there is across the social spectrum as the most wide- almost continual heavy traffic are more spread urban problem. likely—out of necessity—to adapt (and to In short, although it is necessary to ac- this extent ‘cope with’) the constant sights, knowledge and be sensitive to the existence sounds and smells of road traffic than wealth- of variabilities in sensory perception, there ier inhabitants of quieter leafy suburbs or are some generalities in the human condition villages in the urban hinterland. There is, it which permit the description of certain gen- might be said, a class dimension to urban eral features of urban sensory experience. sensory experience (see Appleyard, 1981, ch. The following are, it is suggested, three such 6). Differing cultural contexts can also gener- general, ‘existential’ features of human sen- ate similar variations in sensory responses to sory experience in cities and it is these which the same sensory material. For example, will structure this account of people’s sen- Dutch people inhabit a society where there is sory experience of traffic. a long cultural tradition of providing spe- First, our sensory experience of cities is cially dedicated routes for cyclists, even in one involving all our senses (although in the the heart of the most busy cities. By contrast, context of our experience of the external English cyclists have had to get used to environment, one could exclude the sense of 1616 NIGEL TAYLOR taste, as has been done here). Our aesthetic from ‘inside’ to ‘outside’, from ‘here’ to experience of places therefore comprises ‘there’, from one ‘place’ to other ‘places’ some mixture of visual, auditory, tactile and (Cullen, 1961, pp. 11–12 and 17–55). But olfactory (smelling) sensations. Because of note, again, this plastic quality of urban sen- this, how we evaluate places aesthetically is sory experience is not just one of serial governed by the interplay between, and the vision;itisalso one of serial hearing, smell- overall effect of, these different sensations. ing and touching. For example, we might find part of a city The third general feature of our sensory pleasing to look at and yet find it disagree- experience of cities follows from the second. able because of its unpleasant noises, smells Because most of the time when we are out- or tactile surfaces (the ground may be un- side in the city we are moving from one even, rutted, muddy, etc.). Correspondingly, place to another, our concentration is usually a place to which we are visually indifferent primarily focused on the action of making may yet be experienced as pleasant because our journeys and the pathway (together with of its pleasing sounds (or its quietness), its bordering environment) of our movement. smells, or the touch of its surfaces. This It follows that our sensory experience of sensorily multifaceted nature of our aesthetic much of the surrounding urban world is, experience and evaluation of urban places much of the time, incidental or vicarious; has been typically ignored by most of the that is, it is secondary to the sensations of literature on the aesthetics of town planning motion described above (under our second and urban design, which has concentrated point) and our attentiveness to our channel of almost exclusively on the visible qualities of movement. As we move about the city, there- places (see, for example, Punter, 1986 and fore, the sights, noises, smells and surfaces 1987). of the surrounding urban environment typi- Secondly, most of the time when we are cally strike us intermittently, in a ‘by-the- outside in the city we are moving from one way’ sort of fashion. Indeed, we often do not place to another. Central to our sensory ex- notice many of the objects in our sensory perience of the city is therefore the sensation field, or perceive them in only a blurred way, of our own movement itself, or what is some- as ‘background’ or, literally, in passing (the times called the ‘kinaesthetic’ sensation. In exception to this is, obviously, when we are fact, the kinaesthetic sensation of motion deliberately going out to view the urban en- through the city is primarily a combined vironment, as we do when we are tourists, or visual and tactile sensation. Thus (unless we just going for a walk for its own sake). are blind) we have the visual sensation of different views unfolding before us as we 4.2 The Sensory Experience of Traffic move, and we have the tactile sensation of our own bodies in motion. However, given The three existential features of people’s ur- that all our senses are operative as we move ban sensory experience just described are about the city (the first point above), our fundamental to any general understanding of movement through the city is also a journey people’s sensory experience of traffic in con- through varying sounds and smells. In short, temporary cities. For our experience of traffic because we usually experience the city in is (to follow the order of points made above) motion, our sensory experience of cities is a multisensory, kinaesthetic and vicarious. dynamic one and, in this respect, the film is This account will therefore be divided into the art-form which can come closest to repre- three sub-sections corresponding to these senting urban sensory experience. It is thus three generalisable aspects of sensory experi- that Gordon Cullen began his classic text ence. However, the nature and quality of our Townscape by describing the experience of sensory experience of traffic will obviously townscape as one of ‘serial vision’, in which vary according to the position from which it we have the plastic experience of moving is experienced, and of particular importance THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1617 here is whether we are experiencing traffic On the latter point, Appleyard et al. (1964) ‘from the outside’ as pedestrians or cyclists, undertook some empirical investigations of or ‘from the inside’ as drivers or passengers the ‘view from the road’ and found that over in motor vehicles. In what follows, therefore, half the objects seen by both drivers and some obvious comparisons will be drawn passengers were either straight ahead or nar- between these two groups. rowly to the sides of the road and, further, their attention was (understandably) focused The combined play of all the senses. Some more on moving than on stationary objects. very obvious points can be made about the Speed also affected the visual perceptions of multisensory nature of the experience of the occupants of motor vehicles, so that at traffic. Consider, first, pedestrians and cy- faster speeds the angle of vision narrowed clists. As they move through the city they and focused more sharply on points of de- will see moving and stationary coloured met- cision (again understandably, for reasons of allic objects, hear vehicle engines and tyres safety—a point to which the paper will return on roads, horns and slamming doors, etc. and in section 5). smell carbon monoxide and other gases emit- ted from vehicle exhausts. These sensations The kinaesthetic sense of motion. What are will vary in intensity from place to place in the main features of pedestrians’ and cy- the city, according to the built form of the clists’ kinaesthetic experience of traffic? city and the density of traffic. Where streets There are three main aspects of this. First, are broader and the traffic light, the sight, pedestrians and cyclists have to propel them- sound and smell of traffic will obviously be selves by their own muscular effort and so more muted. However, in relatively narrow part of their kinaesthetic experience will be streets where road traffic is heavy, the inten- this exertion of energy and of the sense of sity of traffic noise and smell can literally their own bodies engaged in movement. And engulf the senses, turning the experience of clearly, where the effort of self-propulsion is traffic into one of acute discomfort. The de- greater—as it is in going uphill, or struggling gree of this discomfort should not be under- against a wind—attention will naturally tend estimated. One of the prime motivations of to be focused more on this expenditure of the modern citizen is to find places to live in physical energy and less on the pure sen- the city where the sensory intrusions of sation of motion itself. Correspondingly, the traffic noise and pollution are at a minimum. pure aesthetic sensation of motion will be felt In extreme conditions, the noise and smell most by pedestrians and cyclists when the (not to mention the visual intrusion) of road physical effort of self-propulsion is less, as traffic is felt to be unbearable. Hence the when they are walking or cycling with ease desperate plea on a banner made by the on the level or downhill, and here there can residents living alongside the elevated sec- be a sense of exhilaration, or pure delight, in tion of the newly constructed “Westway” in just experiencing motion without strain or London in the 1960s: “GET US OUT OF struggle. Secondly, pedestrians and cyclists THIS HELL”. will experience their motion in relation to the How, by contrast, is road traffic sensed by movement of motor traffic in the streets in the drivers and passengers of motor vehicles? which they are moving—which is why, for Once again, the sensory experience will be a example, a cyclist can feel ‘more powerful’ medley of sights, sounds and smells, but the when passing jammed-up traffic (or, alterna- same sounds of the traffic will be more tively, relatively powerless where vehicles muted, the same smells filtered and mixed passing at speed heighten the pedestrian’s or with the smells emanating from inside the cyclist’s awareness of their relatively slow vehicle, and the world will be viewed as if progress). Thirdly, although pedestrians (and from a moving cocoon, and typically focused cyclists sometimes) typically have their own on the road ahead or the immediate roadside. channels for moving in, there are frequent 1618 NIGEL TAYLOR points in the city where they have to cross expressed more forcefully by motorists than lines of moving motor traffic. At these by cyclists and pedestrians. points, their own movement is impeded and they are required to stop and wait until they The vicarious aspect of the sensory experi- can move on. Since, once established, the ence of traffic. It has been noted how some sensory experience of motion is typically aspects of our sensory experience of traffic congenial or even positively pleasing, the can be disagreeable, both to pedestrians and interruption of motion is typically felt as cyclists, and to motorists and their passen- displeasing and can be accompanied by feel- gers. However, this displeasure can be offset ings of tension and frustration. or mitigated by the third general feature of Turning now to the occupants of motor urban sensory experience noted in section vehicles, unlike pedestrians and cyclists, 4.1—namely, its vicarious character. After drivers and passengers of vehicles do not all, we are thinking and language-using (and have to expend their own energy to propel hence communicating) creatures and so, dur- themselves forward and so have the sen- ing some of the time we are moving about sation of being, literally, transported through the city, we are absorbed in thought and/or space. On the open road, this sense of being communicating with others. These activities carried forward in a motor car can be exhila- can therefore have the effect of dulling, or rating, even (at speed) exciting. As Giedion putting into the background, the disagreeable put it sensations and frustrations which we are sub- jected to as we move about. Whether we are At the wheel of the automobile one can pedestrians, cyclists or motorists, the experi- feel what it really means—the liberation ence of road traffic is not the be-all and from unexpected light signals and cross end-all of our world and so, likewise, nor is traffic, and the freedom of uninterrupted the displeasure and frustration which some- forward motion (Giedion, 1963, p. 729). times accompany this experience. But, as Giedion implies in this comment, in That said, one should not underestimate city streets such uninterrupted forward mo- the sensory impact of contemporary road tion is rare and has become all the more so as traffic, and its invasiveness on our ordinary levels of car traffic have risen. Like that of thoughts and feelings. With the increase in cyclists and pedestrians, the forward motion road traffic since the 1950s, the sight, noise of motorists through city streets is subject to and smell of traffic have become pervasive in constant interruption at points where pedes- our sensory experience of the city. Two trians or other vehicles are crossing. The points will make this clear. First, consider the motorists’ experience of moving through the invasiveness of traffic noise compared with city is therefore one of repeated stopping, the noise of the city 50 years ago. There are waiting and starting, giving rise to feelings of now few (if any) points in the central areas of tension and frustration similar to those of contemporary cities where one can experi- pedestrians and cyclists when their motion is ence silence; as many people who move to interrupted. Further, given the capacity of the countryside discover, they have to get motor vehicles to cover greater distances at used to the quiet. The point is vividly illus- speed, and the expectations that this naturally trated by a criterion of environmental quality arouses in their users, the constant interrup- put forward by the Buchanan Report nearly tion of forward motion is if anything felt to 40 years ago. Acknowledging a government be more intensely frustrating than that felt by study which had found that, in London, pedestrians and cyclists, and this feeling will traffic noise was the predominant source of be exacerbated in traffic jams by the further annoyance from noise, Buchanan put for- sensation of being blocked and trapped in- ward a measure for judging an acceptable side a motor vehicle. It is no accident that the level of traffic noise—namely, that “people modern experience of ‘road rage’ is typically should be able to engage in normal conver- THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1619 sation on the pavement without shouting” ‘there is a greater chance of being killed (Buchanan, 1963, p. 72). Forty years on, in crossing the road’. Although we ‘sense’ the the centres of most of our cities, the attain- dangers of road traffic, our attentiveness to it ment of such a standard seems impossibly (our holding onto posts and handles in buses, utopian. We may be communicating crea- etc.) is essentially ‘cognitive’, for it is based tures and, when we are conversing with oth- on our knowledge of what can happen to us ers as we walk around cities, our other if we do not look out, rather than the mere sensations may be pushed to the background. sensation of the presence of road traffic. But equally, such is the volume of noise We touch here on what traffic in the con- generated in most city-centre streets that it temporary city means to us: what it tells us has become increasingly difficult for pedes- when we sense it; what messages it conveys. trians or cyclists to engage in “normal con- This is a potentially wide and complex area. versation”—not, at any rate, without For example, as noted in the introduction, shouting. our perception of different forms of transport The second point leads naturally on to the in different cities (the red London bus, the next section of this paper. It is that, with the squeaky rubber tyres of the Paris metro, the increased level and speed of road traffic in metallic grating and tinkling bells of Amster- cities, moving about the city is potentially a dam trams) is central to our image of some more dangerous activity than it used to be. cities. More generally, when we observe Consequently, whether we are pedestrians, traffic in the modern city, it can convey cyclists or motorists, we have to attend to the messages to us about the kind of society we road traffic around us, so that our thoughts now live in: the pace and busyness of are no longer so free to wander and ponder modern life, our reliance on sophisticated other things. Indeed, the latter is, in this technologies, and so on. As Philip Thiel author’s submission, a fact about our experi- remarked ence of road traffic which is of crucial im- The sound of a locomotive whistle … may portance to our understanding of our denote the presence of an edge [cf. Lynch experience of the contemporary city in gen- 1960], indicate the use of a space, recall an eral. This has not been touched upon before association with the space, operate as an because, logically, it comes under the cogni- element to determine the character of an tive (rather than sensory) dimension of our area, and cause one to reflect on the wider perceptions. It is therefore to this dimension implications of time, space, and movement of the aesthetic experience of traffic that the (Thiel, 1961, p. 48; brackets added). paper now turns. It is clear from Thiel’s observation that a thorough exploration of the symbolism and 5. The Aesthetic Experience of Traffic: meaning of modern road traffic would be ll. Cognitive Perception likely to uncover a rich and complex array of In her novel The Waves, Virginia Woolf associations and meanings amongst different (1931/64) remarks on a passenger standing groups of people. And we can further conjec- on the platform of a London omnibus, hold- ture that these would issue in different value ing on to its metal post in order not to fall judgements about the experience of road from the bus and be killed. In this simple traffic in the modern city, with some people observation is contained a profound truth finding it perhaps dynamic and exciting, oth- about our experience of road traffic in the ers frightening and oppressive, and still oth- modern city—namely, that it is dangerous ers, perhaps, indifferent. To take an extreme and, if we are not attentive to it, then we risk example, for ‘boy racers’ and joy riders, serious injury or death. Indeed, this fact is haring around the city in a motor vehicle can commonly acknowledged when it is often be a positive source of ritualised excitement, said, in discussions about some other risks, full of meaning (Campbell, 1993). But for 1620 NIGEL TAYLOR the elderly or mothers with young children, plastic, sensuous experience of moving the very sound of a motor car revving up, through the spaces which Cullen (1961) de- accelerating and skidding can generate un- scribed 40 years ago. certainty, insecurity, even fear. There is not space here to explore this 5.2 The Depersonalised City complex territory of varying human experience. Instead, the paper will be confined to In moving amongst motor vehicles (whether four general existential features of our as pedestrians, cyclists, or as motorists), we cognitive experience of traffic which seem to see other motor vehicles, not the people in be especially important for our understanding them. Phenomenologically, therefore, we re- of the cognitive aesthetics of the modern late to moving motor vehicles as if they are city. (they are) moving objects, not moving people, even though we know that these moving objects contain human beings. This provides 5.1 The City Experienced as Signs a further twist to Sennett’s conception of a Because people moving about the city (or city as “a human settlement in which anywhere else) are doing so to get some- strangers are likely to meet” (Sennett 1977/ where, they are naturally attending to the 86, p. 39). Sennett (1977/86, p. 48) makes way they must go in order to arrive at their some useful distinctions between our percep- destination. For people undertaking journeys tions of different kinds of strangers (‘out- along routes they know well, this becomes siders’, ‘aliens’, etc.), but whoever the automatic, but others must rely on sign-posts strangers, we usually perceive them at least to guide them and, in conditions where the as human beings. However, in the city of traffic is heavy and/or travelling at speed, it motor vehicles, we come close to perceiving helps motorists, and is less dangerous, if such the occupants of motor vehicles as not even signs are clearly visible when travelling at human, because all we see is a moving ob- speed. For these reasons, as the density of ject. This (in addition to the sensory frus- urban road traffic has increased over the past tration mentioned earlier) may partly explain 50 years, so has the amount and size of road why motorists rage at each other, for they do signage. Hence, as Venturi et al. observed in not properly perceive the other against whom Las Vegas, the architecture of the highway is they are raging. It may also explain certain kinds of irresponsibility exhibited by road an architecture of communication over users to each other and to their vehicles. space; communication dominates space as The way in which perceptions of the city an element in the architecture and the are depersonalised by automobiles may go landscape … It is the highway signs, even further than the point just made about through their particular positions in space, the way we perceive motor vehicles as mov- their inflected shapes, and their graphic ing ‘things’. In driving a motor vehicle, the meanings, that identify and unify the mega typical driver’s prime concern is, understand- texture. They make verbal and symbolic ably, the maintenance of his forward motion connections through space, communicat- to reach his destination, partly because the ing a complexity of meanings through reaching of a destination is the purpose of hundreds of associations in few seconds most journeys (most drivers are not just tour- from far away. Symbol dominates ing) and partly because of the kinaesthetic space … The sign is more important than satisfaction which accompanies the mainte- the architecture (Venturi et al., 1972, pp. 4 nance of an established forward motion (as and 10). noted earlier). Because of this, there is a At the wheel of a motor vehicle, therefore, tendency for automobile drivers to see any the aesthetic experience of the modern city is obstacle to their forward motion as a ‘thing’ as much a semiotic experience as it is the obstructing their movement, whether this be THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1621 other vehicles using the road, or actual hu- and death’ fact about contemporary urban man beings in the flesh who are also using traffic naturally affects (one could say deter- the road as pedestrians or cyclists. The point mines) people’s experience of the modern is made perceptively by Sheller and Urry. city in two particularly important ways. First, because everyone moving around the Car-drivers are excused from the normal modern heavily trafficked city has to be at- etiquette and social co-ordination of face- tentive to that traffic for their own safety, to-face interactions. Car travel rudely in- they have to be perceptually alert and ready terrupts the taskscapes of others to act quickly on the basis of their perceptual (pedestrians, children going to school, judgements. They have, in other words, to be postmen, garbage collectors, farmers, ani- constantly ‘keyed up’, concentrated and fo- mals, and so on), whose daily routines are cused on the task of moving about. The sight merely obstacles to the high-speed traffic (for example) of a person dashing across a that cuts mercilessly through slower-mov- busy road when there is a small gap in the ing pathways and dwellings. Junctions, moving stream of cars is here a very signifi- roundabouts and ramps present moments cant sight. For, in that sudden movement, of carefully scripted intercar action during with all the mental operations and skills that which non-car users of the road present have led to it, at that precise moment, is hazards or obstacles to the drivers intent expressed that concentrated alertness which on returning to their normal cruising speed has just been described. And, of course, it is (Sheller and Urry, 2000, p. 745). precisely such a common event in the modern city which keeps motorists on their toes, continually arresting and sharpening their 5.3 The Need to Attend to Road Traffic concentration. The third point goes back to the observation As noted, this feature of urban experience of Virginia Woolf with which this section is common to all users of the roads in the began. Moving motor vehicles are danger- modern city. But there are three categories of ous; collision with a motor vehicle can kill or people who are especially vulnerable in rela- seriously maim us. We know this and, be- tion to moving motor vehicles and whose cause we know it, whether we are pedestri- relation to this quality of alertness is there- ans, cyclists or motorists, as we move about fore an especially salient feature of their the city we have to be constantly on the alert, experience of traffic. First, because (in observing and taking note of where we are in Britain at least) they are often using the same relation to other moving or stationary vehi- road space as motor vehicles, cyclists are cles, what our relative speeds are and what obviously more vulnerable to impacts with we must do to avoid impact (stop still and vehicles and so have to be correspondingly wait, slow down, steer to the left, etc.). And more alert to the dangers of road traffic. Only of course, the heavier or faster the traffic is on specially segregated cycle ways can the moving, the more everyone has to concen- cyclist in the modern city let up and relax trate on this activity. Only as passengers in their concentration (which is why cycling in vehicles are we freed from this need to attend Dutch cities can be such a pleasure compared to the conditions on the road, and even then with cycling in British cities). Secondly, the possibility of collisions tends to draw there are children of an age who have not yet passengers into looking at the road ahead as really learned what impact with a moving if they were driving, so that it is really only vehicle can do to you (this again shows why passengers on public transport vehicles who this aspect of the experience of traffic is can relax and sit back and read, converse or cognitive). Adults in charge of young chil- look about them without fixing their eyes on dren on the streets therefore have to pay the road ahead. extra attention to the safety of their charges This obvious but significant ‘matter of life as well as to their own safety. The experience 1622 NIGEL TAYLOR of parents and carers moving around the to look around must be supressed (Sheller modern city is thus one requiring this extra and Urry, 2000, p. 747). degree of attention, alertness, concentration and tension. Which is one reason why road 5.4 A Sensibility Both Hyperactive and traffic is a feminist issue. Thirdly, there are Dulled all those pedestrians who are physically infirm or handicapped, and whose capacity to As noted above, the potential danger of road negotiate their way in trafficked streets and traffic makes us attend to it. But even if road avoid being hit is therefore impaired. Being traffic were not dangerous we might still more vulnerable, these people have to be attend to it, for it is composed of moving especially alert and attentive whenever they vehicles, and moving objects tend to attract are out using city streets. our attention. In fact, depending on its den- The second main effect of the potential sity and speed, our experience of observing danger of traffic on our experience of the city and being in moving traffic can shift, para- is the way in which the attentiveness just doxically, between two extremes: it tends described affects, in turn, our sensory experi- to be either highly alert, concentrated and ence of the urban places we move through. hyperactive, or alternatively muted, dull and For quite simply, if you are attending to the monotonous. road and looking out for other vehicles on it Thus, on the one hand, where road traffic (and judging their distance, speed, etc.), then is moving at speed, its very busyness and you are not attending to other things. Only greater potential danger makes our experi- when you stop can you stare at the world ence of the trafficked city one of restless around you and, if you are forcibly stopped sensory stimulation combined with mental from proceeding—as you are in a traffic alertness and concentration as we focus on jam—then the staring is typically vacant and continually observing, assessing and taking clouded by the frustration of being held up. action to avoid moving vehicles. For some, Sheller and Urry describe this experience this may be exciting; for others, it induces vividly in relation to car drivers. They refer intense stress and anxiety. In either case, to a Ford brochure of 1949 which described however, the experience has to be one of the ‘49 Ford as a living room on wheels, and heightened, even hyperactive sensory stimu- note that this vision has become even more lation and cognitive activity. To be sure, the apposite for the modern car driver, with the modern city-dweller has adapted to living in presence of radios and CD players in the car. this feverish world and this may to some On the other hand, however extent lessen the degree of hyperactivity. But it can only subdue it to an extent, for fast- It is a room in which the senses are impov- moving traffic is always potentially danger- erished. The speed at which the car must ous and in its presence (whether one is be driven constrains the driver to always driving a vehicle or moving about outside as keep moving. Dwelling at speed, people a pedestrian or cyclist) one must be alert, lose the ability to perceive local detail, to concentrated, ‘keyed up’. In fact, this hyper- talk to strangers, to learn local ways of active quality of contemporary urban experi- life, to stop and sense each different place. ence may explain why many people quickly The sights, sounds, tastes, temperatures become bored when they are in a stationary and smells of the city are reduced to the position—as when, for example, they are two-dimensional view through the car standing in a place waiting for a bus, or a windscreen … The driver’s body is itself friend. For many, such interludes are not fragmented and disciplined to the ma- experienced as an opportunity to take an chine, with eyes, ears, hands and feet all aesthetic interest in their surroundings. In a trained to respond instantaneously, while world where our aesthetic sensibility has ad- the desire to stretch, to change position, or justed to high levels of mobile stimulation, THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE OF TRAFFIC 1623 we may indeed lose our capacity to ‘stand ing about the modern city tends not to be in and stare’, or at least our capacity to enjoy any way quietly reflective or meditative, as it just stopping and staring at our surround- was once able to be. That is to say, we are ings.4 less able, freely and without distraction, to And yet, in contrast to this, at other times think. Even human conversation is affected our experience of being in the modern by this, which is why old pictures of people trafficked city is one in which our sensibili- tarrying and talking in the middle of city ties are numbed, our experience dull and streets can induce nostalgia. They draw at- monotonous. The key factor here seems to be tention to a quality of human experience in the density of road traffic in the contempor- the city which, owing to the motor vehicle, ary city, which causes it to be often con- we have lost. gested and slow-moving. Such constant sluggish movement is typically sensorily unstimulating. Yet even slow-moving traffic is 6. Conclusions potentially dangerous and so we are still obliged to attend to it, and this need continu- This essay has sought to describe the salient ally to attend to a phenomenon which is itself features of our aesthetic experience of road sensorily uninteresting, and (because of its traffic in the contemporary city, not to judge reduced danger) cognitively less demanding, whether or not this aesthetic experience is, induces a kind of numbed sensibility and an overall, a good or bad thing. On this latter aesthetic experience which is dull and mon- question, we can conjecture that people’s otonous. For the drivers and passengers of aesthetic experiences of road traffic may vary vehicles in congested streets, this stifling of amongst different groups, differently situ- sensory and cognitive experience is com- ated. Doubtless there are some people who pounded by the fact that—being seated and find the phenomenon of moving traffic in the stationary—their tactile, auditory and olfac- modern city, and their participation in it, one tory sensations are ‘on hold’ (as noted ear- of the things which makes city life lively, lier, in section 4.2). In these circumstances, stimulating, exciting. Nevertheless, if,ashas far from being sensorily and cognitively been assumed in this essay, there are some ‘keyed up’ and hyperactive, our senses are basic, phenomenological features of our aes- often ‘switched off’ and our minds blankly thetic experience of traffic which most peo- ‘on automatic’.5 ple share in common, then it may be Clearly, the conjectures made in the fore- suggested that most citizens will share some going analysis could provide a rich area for similar responses to and judgements about further empirical investigation. But if this their experience of traffic in the modern city. analysis is anything like correct, it implies Because of the sheer quantity of road that, when we are outside and moving about traffic on our city streets, and because (for the contemporary city, our aesthetic experi- the reasons outlined in this paper) this traffic ence of the city is very significantly shaped commands our attention, most people’s aes- and even dominated by our experience of thetic experience as they move about the city traffic. Indeed, we could say that, for much is dominated by their experience of road of the time, our aesthetic experience of traffic traffic. Which is why it has been claimed is our aesthetic experience of the city. No that, for significant periods, our aesthetic ex- longer, then, is our aesthetic experience of perience of the modern city is synonymous moving about the city diversified by views of with our aesthetic experience of motor the buildings and spaces we are passing, for traffic. Further, while there may be some we are frequently not attending to these aspects of the experience of road traffic views anyway. And because, as noted above, which some find aesthetically invigorating, it we have to be attentive to traffic, and have to can be conjectured that most people find the be alert in so doing, our experience of mov- sensory and cognitive invasiveness of traffic 1624 NIGEL TAYLOR in the modern city aesthetically unpleasant References and often oppressive (notwithstanding the APPLEYARD,D.K.(1981) Livable Streets. Berke- fact that we are adaptable creatures who ‘get ley, CA: University of California Press. used to’ and ‘make the most of’ living in APPLEYARD,D.K., LYNCH,K.and MEYER,J. less-than-ideal circumstances). Indeed, it is (1964) The View from the Road. Cambridge, likely that many road enthusiasts, who dream MA: MIT Press. of a world in which they can travel around by BACHELARD,G.(1958/94) The Poetics of Space, trans. by Maria Jolas. 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