Life on the streets

More and more attention is rightly being focused on improving the UK's streets; but there are still far too many offputting and pedestrian-unfriendly urban areas. What has to happen to give the streets back to the public?

The recent Living Streets conference focused on ways of encouraging the public to take a daily stroll down the High Street - and by doing so, to help breathe new life into our towns and cities. These days, urban walks are often seen as necessary evils but, given the right environment, the daily routine could become an essential element of our urban wellbeing. Speaking at Street Design within Masterplans: Delivering Sustainable Communities, another recent conference focusing on the plight of the UK's streets, WSP Development's Andrew Cameron also emphasised the need to focus on streets for people by moving away from a highways-dominated environment. WSP, the consultancy leading the Department for Transport project to produce a new manual for the design of streets, suggests that evidence from Poundbury, an urban extension of Dorchester, shows that creating 'medieval' street patterns increases the time people spend walking.

Poundbury's design ensures that residents can take a short walk to the main roads where the shops and offices are, and has proved effective in encouraging a reduction in car use. Twenty five per cent of people in Poundbury walk to and from work, said Cameron. The Highway Authority had wanted Poundbury to put in traffic signs enforcing 20mph zones, but WSP but successfully argued that they should 'keep it ambiguous' - research shows that the average car speed in Poundbury is 15mph, and defining a 20mph limit only encourages drivers to go faster by actually driving at 20mph.

Walkability
It might seem ridiculous, but new housing developments in America, and whole cities like Dubai, are being built without anywhere to walk. Even in the UK, problems persist and drive us into our cars. A Living Streets conference focus on Dagenham Heathway was used to illustrate the problems dogging many UK shopping centres, with litter strewn pavements, railings that divide the street in half and graffiti being the main culprits.

It was pointed out that nationally, 40 per cent of the UK's stock of independent food, drink and tobacco retailers have closed over the last decade, and local banks, post offices, pubs and hardware stores are fast disappearing.

Creating better conditions for people on foot is the only way to reverse the decline. Living Streets has made a number of recommendations via its Walkability Project.

The benefits of urban walkability reaches far beyond just stretching the legs, says Living Streets. Having people out and about in the city can reduce crime, ease social isolation, shape community identity and boost local businesses. In short, walkability is what keeps neighbourhoods - and their inhabitants - thriving.

The car as king of Britain's streets was a recurring theme throughout both conferences. Pedestrians are pushed down into subways and up onto bridges, herded behind barriers and bombarded with traffic from all directions. No wonder the public opts for the car, complained speaker after speaker.
Street life?

'In neighbourhoods up and down the country, street life is in decline,' said Tom Franklin. Fear of crime is cited as one of the main reasons why people chose their car over walking, but when people withdraw from the street the space becomes available to criminals and anti-social elements. Pedestrians provide natural surveillance and see and hear crime, he claimed.

But the RAC says motorists cannot take all the flak. 'People sometimes feel safer at night walking along a busy road than they would do in a pedestrianised zone. The passing cars afford them protection,' said Edmund King of the RAC Foundation. And slowing traffic on main roads for the benefit of those on foot could be self-defeating, he added, as drivers turn off into side roads looking for a quicker route, resulting in jammed side roads.

Peter Neal from CABE Space summed up what many frustrated would-be street users feel by outlining how our urban environment has failed us. The Urban Task Force quite rightly called for streets to be seen as an integrated network of activities, he pointed out, and CABE itself has recently published a report on making higher densities work. The Sustainable Communities Plan is a key driver and highlights liveability issues, but still the public is fobbed off with poor quality streets. CABE Space's 'Paving the Way' further outlines the current impediments to quality. Urban designers take note - and let's have some action.
A full report from Street Design within Masterplans: Delivering Sustainable Communities will be published soon on RUDI.