In the past pedestrians were sort of random residualised byproduct of the
sum total of road policy and of traffic engineers with their sort of attempts to
pen pedestrians in.
Pedestrians have a right to use the pavement but they need to be able
to get across these roads and that pavements need to be a pleasant place to
be with interesting things going on on them.
Pedestrians now have a fixed and articulated place in London's transport
strategy. It simply means that policy now thinks not only about
pedestrians of people walking on the street but the experience of the street for
those pedestrians.
So the mayor's transport strategy is very good. It already says
that we should be having 80% of our trips by sustainable transport modes.
What we'd like to see is mayors showing how they're going to make that strategy
reality – where's the money going to come from, where is the improvement going to come?
So what we're seeing in London is a lot of good schemes in the central area.
I live in fairly close to central London, the walking environment I have is
good, it's possible for me to walk around walk, walk to work. it's a main mode
of transport for me.
We worked with people there in Westminster and with the
Mayor of London in trying to get Oxford Street pedestrianised.
Well actually we found that actually it's quite difficult to get buy in for some
communities for for a walking scheme. It was a flagship scheme
of the Mayor of London. It was in the party manifesto for every single mayoral
candidate and yet as it turns out getting that completed on the ground was
incredibly difficult.
This project showed the absolute importance of involving a
community in a new scheme at the earliest possible moment,
so the local businesses, local residents and all the users of the space. It really
is important to demonstrate very early on in the whole process that this really
is a benefit to everyone that's using the space.
I think there it was a process
of doing it in small stages, really communicating very well with residents
with businesses and listening to concerns and rolling it out more
gradually and showing and demonstrating, acting quickly and demonstrating that the
project is a benefit to everyone.
Well we're not seeing so far is that happening in outer boroughs and what I
mean by that is safer junctions and crossing. It means just better quality
pavement, potholes and just connecting place up, making journeys more attractive.
Often there are estates where that the housing isn't connected up to
shops maybe even to the nearest bus stop with a continuous foot way.
When I'm a cyclist I'm often rather aggravated by pedestrians. When I'm a
pedestrian I'm often aggravated by cyclists. What both pedestrians and
cyclists and other road users need is a an understood relationship, a
Magna Carta for pedestrian users, something like that.
I think it's very important not
to present walkers and cyclists as in opposition to each other. If you look at
the statistics pedestrians are far more likely to have an accident, indeed a
lethal accident with a motorcar. Investment in cycling often and usually
isn't actually an improvement for for pedestrians as well because and the
explanation for that is because the pavement is improved at the same time.
If you're working from home all day you're not going to want to spend the entire
day and evening in. You might then rediscover the area around you and in
your neighborhood. It'll be very interesting to see if the practice
of community groups coming together and mutual aid groups in a local area will
actually make Londoners who famous and perhaps unfairly are considered to be you
know not locally minded, I'm sure I'd sure believe that is, but we might say a
resurgence in people just valuing using and being in their in their local area
which obviously it would be walkable. But in the end you know streets, traditional
streets are democratic places. They are very democratic places and so you can't
make anything work on them without assent. You can change behaviour and perhaps
actually our colleagues in behavioural psychology and you know
sort of behavioral psychology parts of the academic world could help us
here by sending us signals about how we can behave better so that we can use pavements in
a more sensitive and rational way so that everybody gains something.
you