Pedestrians aren’t (always) pedestrian

Here’s a great graphic from the Carfee France site run by Marcel Roberts. The website is a repository of thoughts, links and information about carfree life in France and elsewhere. If your French isn’t great, Google translate will only mangle it a bit when turning it into English. The reason why the graphic is so brilliant is that it captures the variety of things we get up to on two legs (well, many of them), and in so doing, gets away from the notion of we bipeds as merely “pedestrian.”

It reminded me of a graphic on street hoardings I saw when I was carfree in Toulouse in 2012. The hoardings explain a new pedestrian-friendly development in the centre of the city. At first I wondered if it was something in the water in France. And then I realised that the authorities in Toulouse, as in so many other European cities, are serious about prioritising streets for people who aren’t in cars.

I wonder if they have to put up with the likes of Unchain the Brighton Motorist?

And to illustrate the point that pedestrians are shoppers too, here’s a picture from the carfree streets of central Toulouse.

PS: Planning a holiday? See the Marcel Roberts book on Islands Without Cars (Isles San Voitures).

Improving Brighton’s Old Town: No Time Toulouse

  The front page of yesterday’s Brighton Argus screamed “Car Ban for the Lanes?”, as if it was The End of Civilization As We Know It.  The paper’s website took a more measured approach, under the headline “Could Brighton’s Lanes be Pedestrianised?”  To which the answer is yes, bring it on. The Council’s proposals relate to traffic management in Brighton’s Old Town, the area bounded by East Street, North Street, West Street and the sea and which is the historic core of Brighton, originally the old fishing town of Brighthelmstone. The current street pattern dates from the 13th Century, and is well-known for The Lanes, an intricate maze of twisting alleyways which is one of the major destinations in the city for tourists and locals. Most of the comments underneath the article on the Argus website seem to favour pedestrianisation, which means supporting two proposals: first, going ahead with a plan, and second, choosing what is essentially Car Ban (Option A) instead of Car Lite (Option B). Full details are on the Council website, and it’s time to send in your views – whether a resident, business or visitor.
Having just got back from a few days in Toulouse, La Ville Rosé, in south west France, the way forward couldn’t be more clear: it’s time to take the traffic out of Brighton’s Old Town. As the council’s proposal explains, “a significant proportion of traffic in the Old Town is through traffic, with 40% of vehicles entering the Old Town via Ship Street leaving within five minutes…. On a typical Saturday an average of 200 vehicles an hour drive in to the Old Town, compared with 600 pedestrians entering via East Street alone…This volume of traffic is unsuitable for the Old Town as it detracts from the character of the area by dominating road space, creating noise and pollution, and increasing the potential for conflict between pedestrians and vehicles…..walking around The Lanes is one of Brighton’s highlights, however in parts of the Old Town traffic dominates the area forcing pedestrians to crowd onto narrow footways.”
In Toulouse, a city of around 750,000 people (three times the size of Brighton and Hove), there is no on-street parking in the centre of the city, and cars, except for taxis, emergency vehicles and deliveries, are not allowed. Naturally, there’s also a city-wide bicycle rental scheme called VélôToulouse, with bicycles available from automated stations for a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly subscription. The result is that the centre of Toulouse is a place where everyone can enjoy the streets. There is no shortage of shops and shoppers, despite the oft-repeated (and largely un-evidenced) claims about parking being the key to retail prosperity. These pictures give a glimpse of the city, where more improvements are still taking place – and provide a taster of what Brighton could be like with the traffic taken out. So Brighton might not get to be La Ville Rosé, but we might get closer to La Vie en Rose by taking the cars out of our most historic district – so check out the plans, visit the exhibition, and get on the website to express a view before the beginning of July - there really is no time Toulouse.