[This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 18 December 2024]
Some highways madness from the UK this week. It turns out that Oxford CC has decided to spend 80% (£11m) of its active travel budget on… gong wash please!… a new relief road for Watlington that will ‘reduce congestion’.
Well, it will reduce congestion for approximately 27 minutes until the relief road is also filled to capacity with vehicles.
And some people will wonder why other people aren’t flocking to use the accompanying walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure… until they remember they got cheap and opted for the ‘basic’ active travel option that no-one will feel comfortable using.
Folks, once again from the top and for the benefit of the people in the back who’ve just joined us: ‘a track for pedestrians and cyclists beside a large new road does not meet current standards for such schemes”. Well said, Chris Church, co-chair of the Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance.
Until Oxford CC – or any other highway authority for that matter – can properly maintain the roads it already has, maybe it should hang fire on building new ones. Years of disruption and chaos during the construction phase not to mention the destruction of property and biodiversity, the carbon footprint… all for negligible gain and, ultimately, yet more maintenance liability.
But on a brighter note and following on from last week’s missive, I’ve just been made aware of a short film celebrating the Whittington estate in Camden. It was completed in 1979, just before the axe came down on the construction of social housing.
What’s so good about this particular place is that from the get-go it was designed as a low-rise, gentle density housing scheme that was deliberately designed to be child-friendly. The kids all meet up and play together because, as young Rowan points out firmly, there are “no cars” and “there’s lots of space for running.”
So whilst the streets are not necessarily paved with gold, they are filled with activity and community, all under the watchful eyes on the street. Yes. Natural surveillance was deliberately designed into the layout.
This is, I think, what we need if we’re to achieve the government’s ambition to “… raise the healthiest generation of children in our history.”
It isn’t rocket science.
You can spend £11million on a relief road that’s ultimately just going to create more problems than it solves.
Or you can invest it in infrastructure that will enable children like Rowan to run without fear of being run over.
At the very least, can we just ban pavement parking?
#placemaking #walking #cycling #chrischurch #oraa