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  • New towns, Barbara Cartland and public transport

    New towns, Barbara Cartland and public transport

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 15 January 2025]

    This week: New Towns, Barbara Cartland and public transport!

    Create Streets are in the news this week with the publication of their discussion paper ‘Creating New Towns Fast And Well’.

    After all, the 1.5 million new homes planned over the next parliament are going to have to go somewhere… and hopefully not in random fields in the middle of nowhere with a grand view of a motorway flyover.

    The seven Design Principles set out in the paper are all solid urban design approaches and don’t say anything new, except that maybe these principles cannot be stated too often given the below par development that still keeps getting approved.

    But the thing that really stood out for me was the lack of promotion of public transport.

    While talking about buses doesn’t ignite the fever-pitch excitement of active travel and its big screen release LTN1/20, let’s not forget that not everyone can – or wants – to drive. My apologies – not – to highways engineers who are still obsessed with predict and provide even though this approach is now obsolete. See the latest iteration of the NPPF (109) although I admit that with two or three NPPF updates currently coming out every year this may well be out of date and superseded by the time you read this.

    Let’s face it, even Barbara Cartland found that level of output a challenge.

    The paper makes no mention of access to public transport in terms of travel modes – see Principle 2. I have written previously about the issues raised, particularly for women and other vulnerable pedestrians, by lack of access to bus services. New Towns need buses, folks! And ideally a BRT link to bring the residents from the new communities directly into the existing town or city centre. Just make sure the link is running before the residents start to move in. And for the love of malbec, please ensure land is safeguarded to ensure these links are deliverable throughout all development phases. We don’t need another Partridge Walk – the scheme alluded to here – on our hands. And while I’m here, who the heck names these places? Do you know how many partridges walk on a dual-carriageway? Not many.

    Public transport does get a mention in terms of mixed-use areas – Principle 7 – but only to say that walking and cycling should be so easy that using a bus becomes unnecessary. Well, if you’re doing your weekly trolley dash around [insert your supermarket of choice here], a bus can be a blardy useful thing to help you get the merchandise home.

    FACT: women make 30% more bus journeys than men and the majority will change their behaviour in order to feel safe. As placemakers we must provide well integrated and overlooked bus infrastructure as well as the cycle lanes and pedestrian links that get all the publicity.

    Ultimately, we still live in a carsick society. But will these new towns be able to turn the tide given the challenges facing our under-resourced planning departments?

    #carsick #placemaking #createstreets #newtowns #nppf

  • Twins, Barcelona and unicycles

    Twins, Barcelona and unicycles

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 8 January 2025]

    This week: twins, Barcelona and unicycles!

    Nice News have reported that twins have been helping to illustrate the importance of creating walkable places.

    We already know the importance of this: reduced car dependency… a cleaner environment… improved physical and mental health… the list goes on and on.

    But what the twins add to the conversation, given their shared genetics and backgrounds, is proof that between people of a very similar disposition, those who walk more are indeed better off financially and health-wise than those who don’t. Who’d have guessed?

    The study looked at how the environment affects people’s propensity to walk and those twins living close to shops and amenities – the dreaded 15-minute city concept – were indeed walking more than their siblings.

    Similarly, when the walking environment was enhanced, for example with additional pavements and crossings – quelle surprise! – people walked more.

    But as I’ve discussed in earlier pieces, you can live within what, on the face of it, is a 15-minute neighbourhood, but if the walking environment is low grade, car dominated and not overlooked, it will deter walking. We need a holistic approach.

    A desire and ability to walk for day-to-day short journeys is affected by a number of things, one of which is feeling safe on the pavements – just being able to relax and perhaps zone out a little, confident you won’t be run over in a pedestrian area before reaching your destination shouldn’t be too much to ask.

    Well, the city of Barcelona is to start fining anyone riding an e-scooter on the pavement and/or without a helmet up to €500. There are around 44,000 e-scooter journeys a day and with a top speed of 25mph scooters have become the getaway vehicle of choice for bag and mobile phone thieves. 

    Any collision involving a scooter travelling that fast is likely to end badly for the pedestrian/s being hit and the rider/s themselves.

    A new bylaw would limit speed to 15.5mph, as here in the UK, but the ability to enforce these restrictions will be key. Back in Bournemouth, private e-scooters, e-skateboards and e-unicycles were a common sight yet none of these were legally allowed on the road – or pavement.

    Similarly, delivery people riding motor scooters through pedestrianised areas and cars parking on the footways and causing damage to pavements the Council would then have to pay to fix were also normal occurrences. It’s a big commitment to systematically hand out the fines.

    I have no issue in principle with micromobility devices being used in cycle lanes as they don’t mix well with pedestrians. But, without a cohesive, joined up cycle network, we don’t yet have the infrastructure in place to make this feasible and buy-in would of course be needed from cycling groups.

    But the fact remains: encouraging more active forms of travel can only be a good thing in our car sick society.

    #carsick #placemaking #barcelona #15minutecity

  • Parking, unhappiness and car sickness

    Parking, unhappiness and car sickness

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 1 January 2025]

    Happy New Year! Let’s make it a walking and cycling friendly one!

    Why? Well, a duo of stories this week, from both sides of the pond.

    First, here in the UK, the unsurprising but sobering news that – wait for it – cars are getting bigger. So big in fact that they no longer fit into standard parking spaces.

    Many luxury saloons and SUVs are now over 5m long and 2m wide, which is bigger than the average parking space. And assuming you even do find a space, you probably won’t be able to open the doors to get out. My heart fails to bleed.

    If you choose to buy one of these cars, you have to take responsibility and – *checks notes* – keep reminding yourself that there is no right to park.

    Fines can be issued for parked cars that do not fit within marked parking bays. However, these are only between £70 and £150, which is meaningless when you consider the cost of these vehicles start at about £60,000 and can easily exceed £100,000. A £70 fine – or 0.1% of the cost of some of these cars – is, quite frankly, the least of your worries.

    Particularly when you consider that, secondly, the car-dependency that is endemic in the US is actively making Americans unhappy.

    Who would have thought it?

    Half of all car trips in the States are under three miles. We know that this distance is easily cyclable or a cinch on public transport – assuming, of course that the cycling infrastructure and public transport actually exists.

    All too often in the US, it doesn’t. And the decisions on transport investment are invariably made by people who drive.

    Even here in the UK there is an assumption that you drive everywhere. As someone who hasn’t owned a vehicle for over ten years, I’m always amused when people ask where I parked and I explain that I arrived by bus.

    Disability advocate Anna Zivarts, who wrote “When Driving Is Not An Option”, is right when she says: “We need to get the voices of those who can’t drive – disabled people, seniors, immigrants, poor folks – into the room because the people making decisions drive everywhere. They don’t know what it’s like to have to spend two hours riding the bus.”

    True. But not only those who can’t drive, but also those, like me, who choose not to. All non-drivers are fed up of pavement parking, inconsistent and dangerous cycling infrastructure and unsafe walking environments. And even though I have been in the room, if the highways and planning officers aren’t interested in safe, inclusive design, your hands are still tied. Who cares about the Equality Act?

    Of course, our car sick societies aren’t only bad for us. The impact on the environment, water and air pollution and loss of biodiversity to build yet more roads will take more than a few Car Free Days to mitigate. 

    Let’s make 2025 the year all those involved with placemaking treat active travel as the priority and give us our streets back. Can we take Manual for Streets seriously now, please?

    #carsick #placemaking #annazivarts #manualforstreets

  • Relief roads and free range children

    Relief roads and free range children

    [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

  • Manifestos, mental health and five-minute cities

    Manifestos, mental health and five-minute cities

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 11 December 2024]

    A trio of stories for you this week! First, the Labour Party Manifesto is championing the ambition to “… raise the healthiest generation of children in our history.”

    This follows an inquiry into children and young people by the House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee that found the built environment has a ‘critical role’ to play in the creation of child-friendly places. Who knew?

    Why then is the dilution of placemaking by over-zealous highway engineers and volume housebuilders, that have ensured child-friendly places are often designed out of schemes at the first opportunity, allowed to continue?

    A LAP, LEAP or NEAP in a new scheme that’s tucked away in an unobserved corner of a site to minimise noise to residents and give tick-box compliance to a local plan play policy is essentially meaningless. Meanwhile, the over-provision of car parking is often enabled and junctions and turning heads are designed to accommodate the largest and most infrequent vehicles that will visit a site.

    We won’t be able to raise healthy children if they can’t walk to the LEAP because the streets are designed as roads with no continuous pavements at junctions and sweeping radii that enable drivers to take turns at speed… and then park on the pavement.

    The inquiry report found that “One in five children aged 8-15 have a mental health disorder – and by the time they reach 15 years old, the UK’s children report having the lowest average life satisfaction compared with their peers in 26 other European countries. Too many of our children are unhappy, and too many are growing up in unhealthy environments that stifle their opportunities to develop well and thrive.”

    This. Is. Shameful!

    And this at a time when, secondly, the government has closed the Office for Place. The OfP was on track to create digital design tools to help cash and resource-strapped Councils create the very design codes that would support placemaking for children and young people. Is the government actually clear on what it wants and how to create it? Has it read the Equality Act?

    And thirdly, I note that in the Nordhavn district of Copenhagen, they are now championing the five-minute city. Yowza! The design philosophy here is “… now that we have all this infrastructure for walking, biking and public transit, is there still some room for cars?” In other words, the exact opposite of how we go about placemaking here in the UK.

    Do some people need to drive? Yes. Should they be prioritised at all times over everyone else? No.

    I suspect there are a lot of children out and about in Nordhavn. As Jan Gehl says: “… you see many children in a city like Copenhagen… if you see a city with many children and many old people, using the city, the public spaces, then it is a sign that there is a good quality for people in that particular city.”

    Enough said. You get what you invite.

    #placemaking #walking #cycling #larsriemann #jangehl #nordhavn #mentalhealth

  • Car dependency, sustainability and cycling in Copenhagen

    Car dependency, sustainability and cycling in Copenhagen

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 4 December 2024]

    I note this week The New Economics Foundation have recently published a report entitled: Trapped Behind The Wheel – How England’s New Builds Lock Us Into Car Dependency.

    The UDG have conveniently summarized some of the main findings in their latest Urban Update. The drivers (no pun intended) behind this trend include:

    • Land value and condition, which favour cheaper greenfield land in a profit-driven housing development system
    • Relatively lower levels of local political opposition to new developments in more remote areas
    • A lack of early, integrated planning of transport, housing, and development sites, reinforced by substantial underfunding of public planning departments
    • Top-down local housing targets that act in combination with the factors above to produce development in the wrong places for sustainable transport

    To my mind, the third bullet is the kicker. 

    You simply cannot retrofit joined up active travel or public transport provision into a development. It has to be done upfront, at pre-app, in collaboration with all the relevant placemaking specialists who have hopefully read and understand Manual for Streets.

    There is clearly a huge disconnect between the incessant call for sustainable development and the regular use in a DAS of the words ‘active travel’ on the one hand and, the fact that, on the other, despite all the rhetoric, we still keep building in unsustainable locations, that are first and foremost car parks with houses squeezed in between. Any DAS that proudly proclaims a dual carriageway into a site as a ‘… formally designed… gateway’ is *checks notes* missing the point.

    Too much of what we’re approving and building just isn’t fit for sustainable purposes.

    I remember Jan Gehl in his ‘How to Build a Good City’ interview explaining how his then seven-year-old granddaughter, living in Copenhagen, could walk on her own all the way from home to school without ever having to step on a road due to the installation of continuous footways across side streets. What freedom and independence!

    Also, that his ten-year-old grandchildren are: “… allowed to go from one end of the city to the other because it is deemed safe for a little one who is ten and who has been bicycling around with mum and dad since they were five, now they can do it themselves. And that is very nice that you can be mobile early and also you can stay mobile a long time after the doctor has taken away your driver’s licence.” Something to ponder.

    Yet seven years on from his interview, we still can’t negotiate a dedicated cycle lane or 3m radii on a side road junction or a 20mph design speed (BfHL) let alone a continuous pavement, because a driver might get mad or a bin lorry might have to *gasp* cross into the opposite lane to make a turn.

    We have a long way to go, folks. Or maybe we should just move to Copenhagen.

    #placemaking #streets #streetdesign #cycling #cyclelanes #publictransport #jangehl #udg

  • Toronto, housewives and Aldis lamps

    Toronto, housewives and Aldis lamps

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 27 November 2024]

    This week, Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, wants to remove three cycle lanes in downtown Toronto to ease traffic congestion. The rationale for this is apparently based on ‘anecdotal evidence’ – the best and most reliable kind, obviously – that the cycle lanes are exacerbating travel problems. 

    This in a city where six cyclists have been killed in the past year: five on streets with no cycling infrastructure, the sixth having been forced into vehicular traffic by a construction waste bin blocking a cycle lane.

    He also believes that traffic congestion could be mitigated by building more roads and wider streets. Hmm. And a road tunnel! Don’t forget the road tunnel! This is somewhere up there with Robert Moses’ plans for the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Thankfully, Bob’s plans were scuppered by a housewife with a penchant for cycling.

    Anyone with a modicum of sense intrinsically knows that building more roads just equals – *checks notes* – more cars. You simply cannot build your way out of this mess. Build it and they will drive. To think otherwise is insane – and stupidly expensive and disruptive.

    But hey, let’s give Doug the benefit of the doubt for a split second and assume that more and wider roads are indeed the answer the Toronto’s car-related woes.

    Let’s accommodate those cars to the max! Let’s put on our sincere faces and accept the destruction of buildings, severance of communities, noise and pollution and potentially fatal danger to anyone outside a vehicle as being an unfortunate necessity to give drivers on University Avenue the increased freedom to back up a few inches.

    Well, I don’t know about you, but I have yet to meet anyone who’s just come back from a holiday anywhere in the world waxing lyrical about the high volume of fast-moving or idling traffic in the city centre and how wonderful, relaxing and safe it felt to be close to the cars at all times, shouting to be heard and choking in the smog.

    Conversely, some travellers recall the intimate, walkable street network, the astonishing baroque architecture, an unexpected hidden square with a cute pavement café selling the best cakes in town or the peace and quiet of a car-free environment where you can actually have a conversation with the person next to you without needing to resort to semaphore or Aldis lamps to communicate because the din of the cars and juggernauts is so loud.

    So the cure to Toronto’s car addiction problems is not more roads or wider roads or tunnels. It’s actually more cycle lanes, better public transport and viable, convenient sustainable travel choices for everyone. I can assure you that no-one will be visiting Toronto to breathe in the increasingly polluted air or marvel at the number of traffic lanes that can be squeezed onto Bloor Street. 

    It’s time for the housewives of Toronto to get on their bikes and unite, just give me ‘two tings’ if you agree.

    #urbandesign #placemaking #streets #streetdesign #cycling #cyclelanes #janejacobs #toronto #twotings

  • Running, 72% of women and Grana Padano

    Running, 72% of women and Grana Padano

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 20 November 2024]

    Yet again, women’s safety has been a topic for discussion during the past week with interviews taking place on the BBC news with female runners. 

    The issue? 

    Women feel they need to alter their exercise behaviour in the winter months in order to stay safe.

    Of course, this isn’t ‘new’ news. Quite the opposite. Women deliberately altering their behaviour in an attempt to avoid intimidation or confrontation is – *checks notes* – as old as the hills.

    Sport England have discovered that: “… 72% of women in the UK change their outdoor activity routines during winter.”  This is up from 46% last year and is not a good look for what we claim is a ‘civilised society’.

    It seems we have a long way to go.

    But all is not lost.

    We do have options.

    As placemakers we can at the very least design the public realm in such a way that women and all those who feel vulnerable can take back some autonomy and enjoy getting out and about whenever they feel like. 

    We can actually listen and take note when urban designers raise concerns over street and space design and site layouts that would create intimidating environments.

    We can actually listen and take note when urban designers raise concerns over the lack of legibility and permeability of places that will create confusion and possibly fear in those unfamiliar – or even familiar – with an area.

    And we can actually listen and take note when a mere housewife from New York named Jane Jacobs defeated the government machine that was intent on constructing dual-carriageways and urban motorways that would destroy communities, built heritage and hundreds if not thousands of businesses.

    It is, after all, those very communities and businesses that create the activity and eyes on the street that help all of us feel safe whether shopping, exercising or heading to work. And it is the built heritage that enables many of those communities and businesses to be there in the first place.

    We instinctively know what ‘works’ in the built environment. So why aren’t we designing and building more of it? Whatever we build today – for good or bad – will still be there in a hundred years or more. Will we be proud of it? The fact we’ll likely be dead, so why does it matter, isn’t a good enough excuse. People’s health and wellbeing is on the line, people.

    Until these inclusive, legible, permeable, busy, attractive, exercise-friendly streets with their hairdressers and boutiques and delis that offer those little Grana Padano cheese samples become the default design norm, keep keeping your phones and keys at the ready, ladies.

    Amirite?

    #urbandesign #placemaking #streets #streetdesign #janejacobs #amirite #running #sportengland

  • Safety, public transport and the fabulous Jane Jacobs

    Safety, public transport and the fabulous Jane Jacobs

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 13 November 2024]

    Ha! Who knew? I haven’t just been talking off the top of my head for two weeks! An Urban Update from the UDG (Urban Design Group) referenced an article from Cities entitled: ‘Women’s perceived safety in public places and public transport: A narrative review of contributing factors and measurement methods’.

    I couldn’t make it up – certainly not a title that dry. But there we have it – women’s safety and public transport covered in one hit! And a call for tree-lined, actively peopled streets into the bargain!

    According to the UDG’s summary of the report (see bullets below), the key findings will quite frankly be of no surprise whatsoever to anyone who works as a placemaker with a duty of care to the public:

    • Street Lighting and Crime Fear: Many studies focus on how lighting affects safety, especially for women at night. Brighter lighting often lowers fear of crime and increases confidence in using public spaces, but lighting alone doesn’t fully address the underlying anxieties people may have about safety.
    • Visibility and Openness: High visibility in public areas allows people to see their surroundings more clearly, which can reduce fear. Open areas without concealed spots make streets feel safer. By contrast, poorly lit areas with hidden spaces increase feelings of vulnerability, especially for women walking alone at night.
    • Role of Surveillance: CCTV cameras are common, but studies show they don’t directly improve feelings of safety. Women tend to prefer visible police patrols over video surveillance for a greater sense of security.
    • Complexity of Safety Perception: Personal safety feelings result from various factors, including physical environment, social context, and individual characteristics. Personal experiences and anxiety levels also influence how safe a person feels in different settings.
    • Impact of the Walking Environment: Walking through clean, tree-lined streets with active shops and people generally feels safer. Conversely, litter, graffiti, and low activity areas lower perceived safety. Familiarity also matters—women feel safer in areas they know well, especially if they are well-lit and well-maintained.

    I’ve been droning on about these things ad nauseam for years: sorry not sorry.

    On the subject of the walking environment, which covers all the preceding bullets, we can do so. much. more.

    I demand a return to the street-based urbanism of Jane Jacobs – short blocks, mixed use, eyes on the street etc. Simple stuff… but sooo effective. And beneficial to all – not just women.

    To deter anti-social behaviour we must have streets that encourage more people to be out and about. 

    More people out and about = streets that become self-policing.

    Self-policing streets = streets that are safer for all.

    A virtuous circle.

    But until these self-policing streets become the default design norm, keep your phones and keys at the ready, ladies.

    Amirite?

    #urbandesign #placemaking #UDG #urbandesigngroup #streets #streetdesign #janejacobs #amirite

  • Car dependency, GDP and inclusive design

    Car dependency, GDP and inclusive design

    [This content first appeared on LinkedIn on 6 November 2024]

    Yowza! How apropos a question raised in my previous post seems to have been! Namely: Why are we still approving development with substandard access to public transport?

    Well, lo and behold, Peter Walker of the Guardian, no less, has attempted to answer that question by publishing an article on how “Planning rules have failed to link new homes to public transport.”

    It turns out that a study by the RTPI has found that the last ten years of constant chatter about building in sustainable locations with good transport infrastructure has literally fallen on deaf ears.

    There are a number of repercussions to this that anyone who’s been placemaking for over half an hour and has a duty of care to the public will understand:

    • People have to become car dependent out of necessity 
    • This has implications for people’s health…
    • … as well as their finances
    • It disadvantages those on low incomes
    • It disadvantages those who for whatever reason cannot drive, or do not want to drive
    • It makes access to shops, schools, colleges, workplaces, doctors’ surgeries etc. etc. etc. an arduous task in what is apparently a civilised society with sufficient GDP to send us straight in at No6 in the Top Ten countdown of global economies

    Not a good look.

    This week my Urban Design 101 request is a return to strategic level design, reviewing the morphology of existing settlements well served by public transport to investigate how these could be sustainably expanded to accommodate housing need.

    It’s quite clear that the current system of the ‘call for sites’, where land comes forward in an often delightfully ad-hoc manner, often in fields with questionable topography and drainage issues, often far from anywhere and which would just result in yet more car dependency… *checks notes*… isn’t working. 

    I’m not the only one to reach this conclusion – take a look at ‘Achieving Good Town Form’, the latest Urban Design Group paper.

    If we are going to design inclusively – which includes providing the community with a viable choice of travel options – we have to get the public transport links right. 

    A few miles up the road a still-under-construction major, major housing development has had to abandon a bus route through the site because the streets in the neighbouring development parcel weren’t wide enough to accommodate it. But all is not lost! Residents can still walk a quarter of a mile alongside a dual-carriageway on a path that isn’t overlooked to a stop that is barely overlooked by a single house to catch a bus into town.

    And on the way home again, they have the pleasure of crossing that dual-carriageway via staggered crossings. 

    Not much of a selling point even while the fare is still capped at £2.

    Phones and keys at the ready, ladies! 

    Amirite?

    #peterwalker #guardian #amirite #placemaking #placemakers #urbandesign #publictransport #bus