Planning Strategies And Green Transport Of The Pedestrian Precincts In City Centres Of Germany

Since the 1990s the main concern was the planning and renovation for the shopping pedestrian street in the city centres of China. But now the Chinese city centres are suffering by the large-scale expansion of city and rapid increase of the motorized traffic. Actually, similar problems have been showed in the developed countries of the post-war period. In Germany, Pedestrian precincts, as a well-established planning policy, were boomed in every cities and towns. Planning and practice of German pedestrian precincts is a good model of successful revival of city centre in all over the world. It is worth to explore and summarize the experience and fundamental planning concept of German pedestrian precincts for the theory and practice Chinese urban planning.Back to the history of pedestrian precincts in the city centres of Germany after post-war over last 60 years, I would like to start by outlining the three development phases of pedestrian precincts with the development of social economy:pedestrianization of shopping street started at the developed industry period; growth of pedestrian precincts in the city center due to the development of post-industrial economies and societies; Pedestrian friendly city respond to the sustainable development period. Pedestrian precincts have drastically changed the appearance of German city centres and have improved the economic development.The fundamental concept and theory frame can be abstracted from the case study for five German cities. The main ideas of German pedestrian precincts also can be summed up by followed points: pedestrianization as a new lifestyle for the humanized city; improvement of accessibility to city centre in favor of the green transport system; multiplicity of functions (retail,culture, entertainment, leisure and ecology) based on the recreation rediscovering for the identity and traditional value of city centres.Success of pedestrian precincts in the city centres of Germany is principally due to good combination with the public traffic planning. German urban transport planning policy has been undergoing the changes:orientation by "motorized traffic"-modernization and promotion of public transport,-integration for a "rail-cycling-walking" green transport system. After a long term of practice, a serience of successful instruments of environmental traffic management includes:Public transport, area-ride traffic calming, bicycle use, parking management and pedestrian zone. This strategy aims to encourage and improve the green transport systerm of "rail-cycling-walking".Strategy of pedestrian precincts planning can be summarized under the case study of the pedestrian precincts and green transport systerm in the four German cities. Pedestrian precincts planning, as a vital strategy for achieving and sustaining sustainable development of city centres, should be combined with urban planning and transport planning. Success of Pedestrian precincts depends on the green transport strategy which provides important approaches:restrictions and control for the motor vehicle transport, accessibility of public transport, promotion of pedestrian and cycle.Compared to Pedestrian precincts and public transport system of Stuttgart, Dalian located at the elementary stage of "pedestrianization of shopping street", and traffic planning was orientated to the road traffic of private car and bus. However, with the trends from the developed industrial society towards the post-industry society, Dalian should introduce the good Pedestrian Precincts policy and modern rail systems, set up the pedestrian precincts planning strategy based on the "rail-cycling-walking" green transport system.