It may be award-winning, but does it work?

No urban design project should be labelled a success until enough time has passed for people to be able to say with confidence that it works properly, says John Dales

A friend and colleague once told me that, in his view, urban design awards should only be handed out to meas­ures that have been operational for some time. His opinion, which I share, is that success in urban design is much less about how good a scheme looks, or how ‘innova­tive’ it might be, than about how well it works. And, of course, this can’t be properly assessed the day after the ribbon is cut.

The principle of reserving judgement as regards ‘success’ is in many ways familiar to transport practitioners. For one thing, many consider that until the magic 36-month marker is passed then the road safety implications of a scheme cannot be properly commented upon (although quite why 35 months is too few and 37 months too many is never explained). For another, we’re used to ‘before and after studies’ in a way that, for exam­ple, architects tend not to be.

I mention all this because it was, last July, my pleasure to lob a small lump of glass inscribed with the words ‘Urban Transport Design Award 2005’ at those responsible for a couple of transport schemes to which I have referred in previous LTTs: Maid Marian Way in Nottingham and Newington Green in Islington. At the time of the award, these schemes had been operational for several months (if not 36) and both observation and anecdote suggested they had delivered significant improve­ments to movement in and the environment of the places in question.

The Urban Transport Design Award is presented at the Annual Transport Practitioners’ Meeting and this year’s knees-up is scheduled to take place in Manchester towards the end of July. Another lump of glass is presently being fashioned and is destined for the mantelpiece of the award winner for 2006. Could the scheme in question be yours, or one you know and love? Potential winners will be operational ‘transport projects’ that are not solely focused on improving conditions for a single mode or narrow range of users and that also contribute to the cre­ation and maintenance of a better public realm. They may be small or big; a de-cluttering exercise or the re-making of a whole street; public or pri­vate sector-led; capital or revenue.

I was recently asked to assist in the design development of a major ‘transport project’ in a British city where years of work and the success­ful negotiation of complex funding, planning and approvals processes had been undertaken before anyone realised that almost no attention had been paid to the potentially huge adverse impacts of the project on pedestrian movement, the extremely sensitive built environment or development opportunities. All parties now accept that this ‘transport project’ should properly be regarded as a ‘city project’ but it will prove very difficult to retro-fit the missing considerations to such a large project where the hare has already been set run­ning. It is because of situations such as this that, as I trust you’ve had occasion to notice, this column attempts to promote and make known the practice of good urban design in transport projects. The reason for this is that the more that people are able to find out about good practice, the more confident and therefore likely they will be to attempt it themselves. It can be enormously help­ful to be able to show the powers that be examples of where people have tried something new and found it to work. However, the fact that the phrase ‘High Street Kensington’ has become something of cliché points to the relative paucity of other streets or spaces at which people are prepared to point with pride.

Since I am plainly writing this particular column with the intention of encouraging you to notify me (via the editor) of any schemes you may wish to nominate for the 2006 Urban Transport Design Award, I’ll not seek to influence you by mentioning names that may already be in the hat. However, I’m happy to prompt you by including photos of a few places I’ve seen recently that seem to me to have some of the attributes that the winner might have.

The top picture shows a busy but relatively narrow shopping street, already under one-way operation, where footways have been widened and repaved, leaving just enough room for a transit lane and bus stops. This has helped to minimise haphazard kerbside waiting by vehicles and to reduce traffic speeds. Redressing the balance between pedestrian and vehicle movements has made the whole street more walkable, enjoyable and, whether or not it’s a word, crossable.

The middle picture is of an essentially home­made innovation in pedestrian crossings. I’m pretty sure the markings in question, which are atop a junction table, have no formal status but in the context of a comprehensively redesigned street their very ambiguity appears both to assist in encouraging drivers to give way to pedestrians and to encourage pedestrians to ensure they’re being circumspect when they cross. Note also the hint of a median strip. Not sure about those bol­lards, mind…

The bottom picture features the juxtaposition of localised footway widening at a key crossing point with speed cushions that qualify for the descrip­tor ‘token’. It may not look much but the street in question used to look a real mess and had signifi­cant road safety problems: these and other relatively simple measures have tidied up the kerbside activity and provided for more, shorter, safer, informal pedestrian crossing routes.

If you’ve done or seen something you’re also prepared to vouch for, then let me know. It could win an award, or even better: it could one day fea­ture in these hallowed pages!