*Article* **Shared Space and Pedestrian Safety: Empirical Evidence from Pedestrian Priority Street Projects in Seoul, Korea**

### **Haeryung Lee and Seung-Nam Kim \***

Department of Urban Design and Studies, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea **\*** Correspondence: snkim@cau.ac.kr; Tel.: +82-282-05-377

Received: 31 July 2019; Accepted: 20 August 2019; Published: 26 August 2019

**Abstract:** To provide safe and comfortable walking environments on narrow streets without sidewalks, the Seoul city governmen<sup>t</sup> has implemented the Pedestrian Priority Street (PPS) projects. Based on Monderman's "shared space" concept, the PPS involves applying diverse paving design techniques, particularly stamped asphalt pavement of various colors and patterns. This study investigated the effectiveness of the PPS for pedestrian safety. Data sources were (1) video recordings of the nine concurrent PPS in 2014 before and after the projects were completed and (2) a cross-sectional survey at the nine streets. Two groups of multiple regression models analyzed the objective safety, by using the variables, mean vehicle speed and change in mean speed, which were then compared with subjective safety through a questionnaire analysis. The results found that the design strategies reduced the vehicle speed and increased perceptions of pedestrian safety. These sugges<sup>t</sup> that the PPS principles are practical and feasible ways to tackle the safety problems of narrow streets without sidewalks. Further, vehicle speeds increased on streets where the pedestrian zone was clearly distinguishable from the vehicular zone by applying PPS techniques only at the roadside. Thus, clearly separating pedestrians from vehicular zones, which is neither the original principle nor the intent of the PPS, should be avoided.

**Keywords:** Pedestrian Priority Street; shared space; paving design; pedestrian safety; walking environment
