Blog

Or, the trials and tribulations of simply crossing the street in safety

“Our call for evidence revealed a perception of widespread disregard for The Highway Code, particularly the January 2022 changes and particularly by motorists. Individuals report frequently witnessing motorists breaking speed limits, cutting up cyclists, and failing to give pedestrians priority at crossings.” – The Bikeability Trust and Living Streets

Is it time to relaunch the Highway Code?

Find out in this week’s Sketch…

#livingstreets #bikeabilitytrust #pedestrians #cyclists #sharrows #highwaycode #ltn120 #saferstreetsforall

Or, the need to design with children and young people in mind

“There is no point in planning for play on sidewalks unless the sidewalks are used for a wide variety of other purposes and by a wide variety of other people too. These uses need each other for proper surveillance, for a public life of some vitality, and for general interest. If sidewalks on a lively street are sufficiently wide, play flourishes mightily right along with other uses.” – Jane Jacobs

Perhaps when Manual for Streets 3 is finally published, it should call for pavements to be a minimum of 3m wide rather than the current 2m?

Find out why in this week’s Sketch…

#placemaking #urbandesigngroup #udg #cities #urbandesign #janejacbos #children #motonormativity #streets #streetsforpeople

Or, an ode to my favourite urbanist

“Today everyone who values cities is disturbed by automobiles.” – Jane Jacobs

This week, a look at the life and times of Jane Jacobs.

Find out about her criminal mischief in this week’s Sketch!

#janejacobs #urbanist #urbanism #eyesonthestreet

Or, the myth of the failed Waitrose delivery

“Around 15% of displaced traffic disappears from the area entirely as drivers adjust routes and behaviour.” – Living Streets

Name: LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods)

Appearance: Planters, bollards and other interventions – modal filters – that prevent motor vehicles from accessing certain streets to prevent rat-running. The aim is to make residential areas more conducive to walking and cycling. Make places safer and ideally ensure all the shops and facilities you need are within a 15-minute walk of your house. 

What has all this got to do with Waitrose? Is it a wild conspiracy?

Read the latest Sketch to find out…

#LTN #LTNs #bollards #MeToo #Lambeth #motonormativity #waronthemotorist #15minutecity

Or, the challenge of delivering the infrastructure that would encourage women to cycle

“Design should begin with the principle that all potential cyclists and their machines should be catered for in all cycle infrastructure design.” – LTN1/20 (1.4.1)

Back this week to the topic of women’s safety on our streets and how we cater for women – and everyone else for that matter – to get out and about.

I note that Cycling UK are currently promoting the “My ride. Our right” campaign to get more women cycling, which is a laudable thing to do.

Let’s face it, there are lots of reasons why we should get on two wheels…

• It’s good for your health
• It’s good for the planet’s health
• It’s cheaper than running a car
• It’s often more convenient than public transport

… and we have the technology to do it… so why don’t we?

Let’s take a look in this week’s Sketch…

#cyclinguk #myrideourright #cycling #women #ltn120 #placemaking #nppf #manualforstreets #paris #streetsforkidscitiesforall

Or, an ode to good placemaking

“More than three quarters of all planning applications in the UK are prepared by someone with no design training.” – Urban Design Group

Name: Urban Designers

Age: Somewhere between c10,000 years – since people started congregating in cities – and 47 – the Urban Design Group was founded in 1978. We got there eventually.

Appearance and temperament: Varies from the ultra-serious urbanist dressed in head-to-toe black silk Armani suit (dark colours are best) to jeans and tweed jackets and every colour and material combination in between. Likely to have a strong distrust of planners and engineers who wear shoes that look like Cornish pasties.

Why is any of this important? It turns out that developers – some of them at least – actually value urban designers! The Urban Design Group have recently published a report “Urban Design: what Developers really want…” and it turns out that some of things they like about urban design are what I and other urban designers have been rambling on about for years:

✅ Investing in good design will increase the value of your scheme!

Find out how this could possibly be so in this week’s Sketch…

#placemaking #urbandesign #urbandesigners #officeforplace #urbandesigngroup #udg #manualforstreets #walking #cycling #nowheresville

Or, how we can embrace a female perspective to improve the design and accessibility of our new towns

“Today everyone who values cities is disturbed by automobiles.” – Jane Jacobs

… and, I would say, disturbed by the people driving those automobiles in particular!

This week I take a look at placemaking through a more female lens. Could gender-responsive planning be the key to our new towns’ success?

Find out in this week’s Sketch!

#urbandesign #janejacobs #genderresponsiveplanning #motonormative #naturalsurveillance #eyesonthestreet #newtowns

Or, what the Finns can teach us about designing successful new towns

“There are features I think are important like variation, like roads that aren’t all straight so you get a natural variation in the road” – Keir Starmer

What do we want our towns and cities to be:

• Places where walking, cycling and public transport are the natural choices?
• Or places where driving remains the norm, cars are too big for standard parking spaces and the increasing incidence of potholes and fatalities due to the increased weight of cars is ‘just one of those things’?

Find out in this week’s Sketch!

#bridge #helsinki #mini #motonormativity #walking #cycling #publictransport #carfree #newtowns

Or, Can you give me 1,213,385 reasons not to become a flaneur?

“Too much urban space is allocated to cars in cities – including free parking at the taxpayers’ expense for which little justification exists.” – Giulio Mattioli, transport researcher at Technical University, Dortmund

So, it turns out that cars are getting bigger and can no longer fit into standard parking spaces. Large SUVs, which exceed 1.8m in width or 4.8m in length would overhang perpendicular spaces and trap the occupants inside due to the proximity of the car parked next to them.

As cars are getting 1cm wider every two years, we clearly have a problem. Are we just supposed to start giving even more land over to cars for parking?

I take a look in this week’s sketch…

#walking #motonormativity #pavementparking #carspreading #creativity #flaneur #manualforstreets

Or, what omissions in the NPPF mean for active travel and the quality of the built environment

“In its rush to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament, is the government sidelining beauty as a trivial aesthetic obstacle to the political objective of increased housing supply?” – Ike Ijeh

Perhaps Keir Starmer should have just gone to Specsavers…

#NPPF #LTN1/20 #planning #transport #transportfornewhomes #officeforplace #cycling #placemaking #activetravel