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The transport problem of the market squares regeneration in the historic towns and cities of Galicia
Section 1. Architecture
Kaplinska Mariana, Lviv Polytechnic National University PhD Student, Institute of Architecture Department of Architectural and Artistic Heritage Restoration
E-mail: [email protected]
The transport problem of the market squares regeneration in the historic towns and cities of Galicia
Abstract: The transport problem of the market squares regeneration in the historic towns of Galicia is examined in the paper as it’s the problem that arises in the earliest stages of the designing their architectural and urban environment. The development of transport systems is one of the most important urban factors and must be taken into account and adjusted for the purpose of the towns and cities architectural and urban heritage preservation.
Keywords: transport, market squares, historic towns and cities, Galicia, regeneration, heritage, pedestrian zone.
The towns ofGalicia differ in terms ofpopulation, territory, levels of economic and cultural development, the place and role in the settlement system and consequently of the level of transport systems organization in general, that is reflected in the structure of the administrative-territorial system: administrative significance of the city and its transport capabilities are naturally interdependent. There are 152 urban settlements on the territory of Iva-no-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil regions (148 within of the historic region of Galicia). The list of historical settlements include 112 ones, the market squares constituting the object of our study are identified in more than 90 of them. According to administrative significance the 10 of studied objects belong to the cities of regional importance (3 of them — regional centers), 50 — of district importance (23 of them — district centers), 35 — urban villages (including 3 — district centers).
Obviously, first of all the directly linked to the market squares motor transport must be considered: available in all the cities and towns public transport (local and external); individual transport (mainly automobile and cycling); and available in few cities public electric transport (trams and trolleybuses).
The local public transport works mainly in the district centers with the population of 10-20000 people, sometimes less: Berezhany, Brody Buchach, Gorodenka, Dolyna, Zbarazh, Zolochiv, Nadvirna Rohatyn, Chortkiv; and in the cities of regional significance with population more than 50000 people: Drohobych, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kalush, Kolomyia, Lviv, Ternopil. In the largest of the
studied cities trolley buses (Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil) and trams work. Nowadays trams work only in Lviv (one of the routes is crossing the market square along its southern side). Although there was a suburban narrow gauge railway in Kpolomyia, which connected it with the villages of Rungury and Kovalivka and crossed the town market square. It was dismantled in 1967. The plan to build the tram system in Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanislav till 1962) was destroyed by the WWI. According to the scheme, one of the tram routes had to cross the market square of Ivano-Frankivsk along its western side.
However, there is no their own public transport in most cities, and the function of internal communication is integrated into the external transport system. This is facilitated by the road network formed in such a way that roads of the state and local importance pass usually through downtowns crossing almost the all studied market squares.
Following international routes pass through the Ukrainian part of Galicia: E-40 (the longest European route, which is the part of No.3 international transport corridor (it crosses Mostyska, SudovaVyshnia, Horodok, Lviv in one branch and Krakovets, Yavoriv, Ivano-Frank-ove, Lviv — in another, and then goes through Kulykiv, Busk, Olesko, Brody); E-50 (the part of which coincides with No.5 international transport corridor; crosses Skole, Stryi, Zhydachiv, Khodoriv, Rohatyn, Berezhany, Kozova, Ternopil); E 372 (Rava Ruska, Zhovkva, Kulikov, Lviv); E-85 (Ternopil, Mykulyntsi, Terebovlya, Kopychyntsi, Chortkiv, Tovste, Zalishchyky). These routes along with the routes of national (H-09, H-10,
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Section 1. Architecture
H-13, H-18), regional (P-15, P-20, P-24, P-39, P-40) and territorial importance (T-0904, T-0906, T-0910, T-1404, T-1418, T-1425 and others) pass through more than a half of the market squares in question. It was determined in general that 8 ones among the studied market squares are crossed by international highway, 13 — by routs of national, 8 — of regional, 19 — of territorial importance; the rest are the roads of local importance, which in any case are the main transport arteries of the settlements. Thus in 34 cases the roads of national importance with the commensurate vehicle load (bulky trucks and buses on the condition of simultaneous absence of bypass roads or their poor state) cross the market squares, suggested in this study as the objects urban heritage, that leads along with other factors to their destruction. There is no road only at the site of the lost market square in Sokal. In some cities pedestrian zones are arranged at the historic market squares, e. g. in Iva-no-Frankivsk since 2012. Car traffic is withdrawn from the Lviv Market Square, but tram routes still work here, their tracks run along its southern side. They consider the possibility of placing pedestrian zones at the market squares in Berezhany and Zhovkva. Several ineffective for the time attempts to ban cars from entering the territory of the market square were made in Drohobych.
The three main arguments are to be given in favor of pedestrian zones arrangement in the historic market squares areas: the argument of heritage preservation, ecological one and the argument of urban public space comfort (both physical and psychological).
Although the roads played an important role in city founding and shaping and have been passing through their market squares from ancient times, but the nature and intensity of contemporary traffic and requirements for planimetric parameters for highways conflict with the requirements and the priority of valuable, historically formed planning structure of the Galician towns and cities preservation. This problem appears most clearly in the downtowns, in which most of the historic buildings are lost, while the urban structures are generally preserved, as the radical reconstructions and expansions of the red lines, envisaged in the Master Plans of the 70-ies, in many towns have not been implemented. The historic streets are usually narrow, and their irregular configuration with numerous bends are valuable and should be protected. The preserved for today historic buildings capture the streets width from 7 meters and on average of12-13 meters. This length is not sufficient for the proper functioning of roads of the state importance [1,61], but allows to organize driveways or streets of lo-
cal significance, although it is not always possible in this case to comply with all town planning restrictions. The compliance with the historic red lines is a fundamental objective for the protection of built heritage, and if the requirements for roads are contradictious to it and they cannot be weakened, such roads should be made outside the valuable historic architectural and urban environment. This requires the construction or repairing of bypass routes to remove transit transport from the cities and towns.
The associated with road traffic harmful emissions as well as vibration are causing the destruction of historic buildings, while most of architectural and urban heritage in the historic cities and towns of Galicia still remain insufficiently studied and unappreciated. Despite all the benefits, automobile transport belongs to one of the main factors of pollution (except the exhaust gases, the toxic road effluents and noise pollution should also mentioned) that affects the human health and lifespan.
The current state of transport systems in the region leads to the problem of social injustice, when different categories of people are unequal in use of urban space. Much attention is been payed to this aspect of the transport problem in recent decades: the imbalance in public and private road transport (difficult access to goods, services, work, participation in public life); the threat to human health and life (pedestrian confinement, especially for women, children, people with disabilities, which has negative consequences for the physical, intellectual and emotional development); the improper use of the city territory (the exclusion the majority ofpedestrians from urban space for the minority of drivers), etc [2; 3].
These transport problems are inherent to urban spaces in general, but their relevance is been intensified [4, 4] in case of historic market squares that are firstly the historic citywide public centers and secondly the comprehensive objects of cultural heritage. Therefore, the presence of vehicular traffic in the market squares hinders the full use of the potential of their historic architectural and urban environment. However not all the objects have equally favorable conditions for pedestrian zones arranging. That depends on the state of their preservation, the planning structure features, administrative significance of a town or a city and the degree of its urbanization, the nature of its terrain etc. Considering the listed factors, the following groups of cities and towns for the possibility of pedestrian zones arranging in the territory of their historical market squares may be identified:
• The ones in which transport is excluded or under the removal from their market squares spaces. Two
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The transport problem of the market squares regeneration in the historic towns and cities of Galicia
categories of objects can be distinguished in this group. The first includes already shaped, well-preserved market squares in the cities of regional importance (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Drohobych) or in which Historic and Cultural Reserves are organized (Berezhany, Zhovkva). The second includes historic market squares, which, given the state of their destruction, have lost the sense of a square and therefore the need for transport links (e. g. Sokal, Zaliztsi).
• The ones in which the reorganizing of traffic is enough to arrange the pedestrian zones. This cities and towns have mainly developed street network, formed and well-preserved market squares without any roads of the state importance in these spaces (e. g. Busk, Halych, Hlyniany, Zhydachiv, Zbarazh, Zboriv, Kalush, Kozova, Kolomyia, Mykolayiv, Mykulyntsi, Novyi Yarychiv, Ro-zhnyativ, Sambir, Skole, Sudova Vyshnia, Staryi Sambir,
Stryi, Turka). That causes the traffic is not too difficult to redistribute into local streets outside the historic market squares.
• The ones in which the arrangement of pedestrian zones requires complete their road networks with new streets and to build bypass roads. The most difficult situation arises in the cities, which are crossed by the routes of the state importance, especially international roads. The problem of transit transport in their central parts cannot be solved at the expense of residential streets, so there is certainly urgent problem of constructing bypass roads. Most of these objects do not have local public transport. In terms of heritage preservation, the most acute problem is the placement of bypass roads for such cities and towns as Belz, Bolekhiv, Buchach, Ivano-Frankove, Komarno, Kulykiv, Pidhaitsi, Pomoryany, Rudky, Skala Podilska, Skalat, Stara Sil, Khodoriv, Schyrets.
References:
1. ДБН 360-92**: Планування i забудова мшьких i сгльських поселень. - К.: ДП “Укрархбудшформ”, 2002. -110 с.
2. Мшта потерпають вдд транспортних хвороб. (http://velotransport.info/?p=1054).
3. 1гор Тищенко. Що таке мшький публiчний проспр. (http://mistosite.org.ua/uk/articles/shho-take-m%D1%96skyj-publ%D1%96chnyj-prost%D1%96r).
4. ДБН В.2.3-5-2001: Вулищ та дороги населених пункпв. - К.: ДП “Укрархбудшформ”, 2001. - 102 с.
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