Nick Searl, Partner, Argent
Max Martinez, Associate Director, Space Syntax
Bruce McVean, Associate Director, Beyond Green and Founder, Movement for Liveable London
walking
Putting streets on the political agenda – Register now for the Living Streets Supporters’ Conference
Putting streets on the political agenda: General Election 2015
Living Streets Supporters’ Conference
10am – 4.30pm, Saturday 21st June at NCVO, King’s Cross, London.
We’re delighted to be supporting this year’s Living Streets Supporters’ Conference.
The central theme for this year’s conference is putting streets and walking on the political agenda in the run up to the General Election. With the election only 11 months away the time to get streets on the political agenda is now.
The packed programme for the day includes a keynote address from John Whitelegg, who will be addressing ‘putting sustainable transport at the of election campaigning’; Streets Question Time – your chance to ask representatives from the main political parties about there plans to put pedestrians at the heart of transport policy; and masterclass sessions covering engaging with MPs and decision makers, running a successful local campaigning group and online campaign tactics to inspire change.
The conference is free to attend. You can find more details and register to attend here.
Speak up for your high street – Tom Platt’s Street Talks presentation
Tom Platt, London Manager, Living Streets: Speak up for your high street (1st April 2014)
The Living Streets Speak up for your high street campaign aims to ensure councillors elected on 22nd May champion people friendly high streets following election.
The campaign proposes six practical steps councils can take to help breath new life into London’s high streets by making them more inviting places to walk and spend time. Write directly to party leaders in your borough and ask them to take the Living Streets pledge.
An introduction to the Ramblers in London
A guest article by Alex Mannings, Chair, Inner London Area Ramblers and Ramblers GB trustee
The Ramblers in London are an active mass-membership campaigning organisation. You might associate the Ramblers with group walking in the countryside however over 10% of our membership lives in London.
The Ramblers is approaching it’s 80th anniversary next year but we are still campaigning across the country for walkers rights and seeking new places to walk – for example we recently won a battle to introduce a coastal path around England despite pressure from government to scrap this.
Walking is everywhere in London; commuters walk to work and people walk for leisure in the city’s green spaces and along footpaths. London also has a national trail right through the middle of it – the Thames Path – and has two footpaths which circle London – the London Loop and Capital Ring. Other routes include the Green Chain Walk, which links green spaces across southeast London.
However footpaths in inner London lack legal protection. In other areas of the country footpaths are protected by their inclusion on a definitive map of public rights of way. Inner London is currently excluded from this map, something we’re campaigning to change. The lack of legal protection for where we walk is evident in how footpaths can be blocked and diverted in London with little warning. Just in the last year we have led campaigns against blockages to the Thames Path in Greenwich and to the Green Chain Walk to Bexley.
As well as campaigning the Ramblers, in partnership with Macmillian, also run Walking for Health – group walks of 1 to 3 miles that aim to get people who are currently inactive out walking. These are a crucial way of enabling people from all walks of life and backgrounds to get out, get active and improve their health.
Walking is a great way for people to interact with the city, and many short journeys that are currently made by tube, bus or taxi could be easily walked – why take the tube from Waterloo to the city when you can walk it along the Thames Path in 30 minutes past London’s famous landmarks? Just imagine the social, economic and environmental benefits of encouraging more people to walk instead of using over crowded tubes and buses.
More can and should be done to promote walking in London. Cycling makes the headlines and Boris has appointed a cycling tsar, but commuting by foot is undertaken by thousands of people each day and almost every journey starts and ends with a walk. Despite this walking enjoys little media coverage and is not really mentioned by our politicians. Walking needs to be championed, promoted and made safer – at a recent parliamentary committee it was suggested that pedestrian deaths in London were as high as cyclists.
Come and join us on a walk in and around London to see how great walking is. Ramblers Inner London area has 9 walking groups including a group that specialises in short walks (the London strollers) another for people in their 20’s and 30’s (the Metropolitan walkers) and those in their 40s and 50s (the Capital walkers) as well as 6 walking groups covering all the Inner London boroughs. You can find out more about us on our website.
Street Talks with Ben Addy – DIY Streets, 2nd July
Street Talks with Ben Addy, London Communities Manager, Sustrans – DIY Streets
In an age of austerity and localism Sustrans DIY Streets projects allow communities to develop affordable solutions to make their streets safer and more attractive places to live. The DIY Streets project in Haringey, which ran from 2010 – 2012, led to a 10% average reduction in traffic volume at monitoring sites; a 23% increase in traffic travelling 20mph or less; a 61% increase in residents who felt the street was attractive and a 34% increase in residents who felt the street is place to socialise.
We hope you can join us for July’s Street Talks when Ben Addy, who leads Sustrans DIY Streets work in London, will explore how local residents and other partners can work together to create high quality urban environments that promote sustainable travel and are safe and pleasant to live in and visit.
Upstairs at The Yorkshire Grey, 2 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PN at 7pm on Tuesday 2nd July 2013 (bar open from 6pm).
Ben Addy is the London Communities Manager with Sustrans. He is responsible for managing the Communities projects in London – including DIY Streets and Pocket Places. Prior to his current role, Ben delivered a two-year DIY Streets project in Turnpike Lane, London Borough of Haringey. Ben has an MA International Studies from the University of Denver and has extensive experience working on social justice projects and campaigns in both Europe and North America.
Street Talks with Cllr Vincent Stops and Trevor Parsons, 4th June
Street Talks with Cllr Vincent Stops, Hackney Council and Trevor Parsons, London Cycling Campaign in Hackney – Hackney: Lessons from London’s most liveable borough
Many different factors – topographical, historical, economic, social, demographic and political – have contributed to the borough of Hackney becoming arguably the most liveable in London. We hope you can join us for Street Talks in June when Trevor Parsons and Vincent Stops will explore these factors, outline the many problems and constraints which still remain, and discuss strategies for overcoming them.
Upstairs at The Yorkshire Grey, 2 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PN at 7pm on Tuesday 4th June 2013 (bar open from 6pm).
Vincent Stops has been a councillor in Hackney for 11 years. For two he was the lead member responsible for transport, streets and environment issues. For the last seven he has been the Chair of Planning. During all that time Vincent has promoted the benefits of a great public realm, great built environment and the importance of bus, cycle and walking. Vincent has worked in transport policy for several years.
Trevor Parsons lives in Hoxton and tinkers with computers. He became involved in his local London Cycling Campaign group when it appealed for help in the struggle against the building of the M11 Link Road. He has remained active at the borough level ever since, and claims the first use of the word ‘permeability’ in relation to planning for cycling.
A new movement for The New City – Bruce McVean’s The New City lecture
This is a write up of Bruce McVean’s The New City lecture given on Monday 11th February 2013 at Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture.
A brief (and over simplified) history of transport and the city
Cities have always been shaped by transport, while the planning and design of cities impacts on transport choices. The first cities were inherently walkable – the primary mode of transport was people’s feet and cities were necessarily compact in size and form as a result.
Public transport allowed cities to grow well beyond a size that would allow a person to comfortably walk from one side to the other. The expansion of train, tram, bus and tube lines helped suburbia spread, but the component parts of suburban growth remained walkable – homes needed to be within walking distance of train stations, tram stops, bus routes, shops and services. Today we’d say that cities were expanding through ‘transit orientated development’.
Mass private transport came in the form of the bicycle, which enabled people to travel further for journeys not served by public transport, bringing new personal freedom of movement that helped whet the appetite for the even greater freedoms promised by the car.
Aspirations towards car ownership were matched with aspirations towards home (and garden) ownership. After the Second World War rising car ownership freed developers from the need to provide easy access to public transport. Shops and services no longer needed to be within walking distance. Aggressive lobbying by car manufacturers, government investment in road building, and changes in planning policy and development economics all helped fuel the rise of the car as the transport mode of choice.
Now those who live in suburbia have little choice but to drive – trapped in a vicious cycle of car dependency as the separation of land uses continues to place jobs and services beyond the reach of those on foot, while low densities make the running of decent public transport nigh on impossible – and most people looking for a new home have little choice but to buy in suburbia.
Of course, it wasn’t just suburbia that was being shaped by the car. In existing urban areas perfectly functional buildings and even neighbourhoods disappeared under the wrecking ball to provide the road and parking space necessary to bring the car into the heart of the city.
The problem with cars
The negative impacts of our love affair with the car have long been acknowledged. As have the difficulties of trying to do anything meaningful to address them. In 1960 the Ministry of Transport commissioned a team led by Colin Buchanan to look at the problem, resulting in the publication of Traffic in Towns in 1963. 50 years on the project steering group’s famous acknowledgement that, “We are nourishing at immense cost a monster of great destructiveness. And yet we love him dearly…” still rings true.
Undoubtedly many people still aspire to car ownership, or view owning a car as essential to maintaining a high quality of life. And who are we to deny them? Engines keep getting more efficient and electric cars will help wean us off carbon dioxide emitting toxic fossil fuels. What about those self-driving cars we keep hearing so much about? Aren’t they going to use road space so efficiently that congestion will be a thing of the past, along with crashes? Perhaps, but what kind of city do we want to live in? One where everyone zooms about in their own metal box, completely removed from their fellow citizens? Ask anyone how they think their city can be improved and the answer is unlikely to be more cars – self-driving or otherwise.
Technology may soon address the problems of the internal combustion engine and the contribution that car travel makes to carbon emissions and air pollution; but technology alone can’t solve the myriad of other negative impacts of car dependency that are neatly summarised in the diagram below from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s report The Urban Environment. Tackling carbon emissions and air pollution is an essential task, but it’s not the only task – the big villain isn’t the internal combustion engine, it’s the car. As Taras Grescoe argues in Straphanger, “The automobile was never an appropriate technology for [cities]. As a form of mass transit for the world, it is a disaster.”
A better Westminster for pedestrians
Living Streets work to create streets that really put people first. When we have streets we want to walk in, lives are transformed – we are healthier, happier and more sociable. Living Streets Local Groups make a real difference by campaigning on the issues that matter in their local area.
We’re partnering with Living Streets to launch their new Westminster Living Streets Group on Tuesday 12th March . We’ll be joined by Sir Terry Farrell, one of the world’s foremost urban planners and architects, who will be sharing his vision for a more people friendly Westminster. We hope you can join us too.
6.30 for 7pm, 12th March at Terry Farrell and Partners, 7 Hatton Street, NW8 8PL. Directions here (pdf).
During forty years in practice, Terry Farrell has transformed London’s skyline and animated the banks of the Thames with his Charing Cross and MI6 headquarters buildings. It is, though, through his long-term involvement in the region’s urban planning – through specific projects, as well as through advocacy and initiating public debate – that Farrell has made his greatest contribution . He is currently the government champion for the planning of the Thames Gateway and advises the Mayor of London on his Design Advisory Committee.
If you would like to know more please contact Tom Platt at Living Streets – tom.platt@livingstreets.org.uk
London’s Towpaths: The Fastest Way to Slow Down
A guest article by Dick Vincent, London Towpath Ranger, Canal and River Trust
Share the Space is a new campaign run by the Canal and River Trust, encouraging considerate use of towpaths in London. The Canal and River Trust, which will take over from British Waterways as the guardian of London’s waterways later this summer, are calling for all those who use London’s towpaths to follow a new Greenways Code for towpaths and to help keep the capital’s historic network of waterways safe and pleasant for everyone to share.
We, the Canal and River Trust, as guardians of London’s towpaths, are faced with a problem, albeit quite a lovely problem to have. We are just too popular. Our towpaths provide a network of green spaces that seem such a novelty in a city like London. They’re a lovely way to get from A to B by foot or by bike, simply enjoy a relaxing stroll or a picnic lunch. At peak times, however, in busy places like the Regents’ Canal, some 500 cyclists and 300 walkers per hour use the towpath and it’s our responsibility to ensure the towpaths remains safe and enjoyable for everyone. This is why we have recently launched our Share the Space campaign, as part of a package of measures, to encourage those who use London’s towpaths to be considerate of other users, and help to keep the towpaths as havens for people and nature.
Behavioural change campaigns, such as this, are not new to us. We ran the Two Tings campaign for the past three years, encouraging cyclists to give ‘two tings’ of their bell, to let others know where they are when they are approaching, or wanting to overtake. In terms of raising awareness and engaging with cyclists, the campaign was an overwhelming success. How do we know this? Pretty simple really, just stand on the Regents’ at peak time – all you can hear is bells!
This is why we’ve created this new campaign. Based on our research , which we undertook with Forster Communications and involved focus groups workshops and a canal network wide consultation, we discovered most people are now more concerned about the speed at which other visitors travel and their consideration for others.
Share the Space is for everyone, not just one particular group. We want everyone who uses the towpaths, cyclists and pedestrians alike, to be considerate, and follow our ten point Greenway code;
1) Share the Space- consider other people and the local environment whenever you’re on a Greenway.
2) Drop your pace- jogging and cycling are welcome, but drop your pace in good time and let people know you are approaching by ringing a bell or politely calling out before waiting to pass slowly.
3) Pedestrians have priority- towpaths are Greenways, or shared use routes where pedestrians have priority.
4) Be courteous to others- a smile can go a long way.
5) Follow signs- they are there for the safety of everyone. Cyclists should dismount where required and use common sense in busy or restricted areas, recognising that pedestrians have priority.
6) Give way to oncoming people beneath bridges- whether they are on foot or bike and be extra careful at bends and entrances where visibility is limited.
7) When travelling in large groups- especially if you are running or cycling, please use common sense and give way to others.
8) Try to avoid wearing headphones- as this makes you less aware of your surroundings, and others sharing the same space.
9) Keep dogs on a short lead- and clean up after them.
10) At all times, keep children close to you– and encourage them to learn and follow the Greenway Code for Towpaths.
And – to be honest – we don’t think it’s much to ask! We worked hard to keep the rules simple, easy to follow and above all else common sense.
We have also recruited an excellent team of Volunteer Towpath Rangers, in all the boroughs the London canal network flows through to spread the word. They run towpath events, act as our eyes and ears but more importantly they’re our ambassadors meeting with local groups and communities.
We’re sure that by spreading the message about Share the Space, we can help relax the towpaths, which can be incredibly congested during peak times with the same success that Two Tings had. We want our waterways to be a pleasant experience for everyone to enjoy, and we would encourage anyone who meets CRT staff or volunteers on the towpaths to say hello and talk about the campaign.
Share the Space is entirely funded through the Greenways fund; a joint venture from Transport for London (TfL), the Mayor of London and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which is making enhancements across the capital to facilitate better access for walking and cycling. With the surge in popularity of the towpaths, we are also working with TfL to provide alternative routes, improving the quality of roads in the capital so that cyclists who wish to travel at speed can use the roads safely, and leave the towpaths for those – such as less able walkers or not-so confident cyclists – seeking the more leisurely way of life.
To join the conversation on Twitter, tweet us @BWcomms, use the hashtag #sharethespace, or for further information visit www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/sharethespace
Movement for Liveable London 