Walkability - the new name of the game for US cities

Walkability – US realtors want more, because punters want more of it. According to thisarticle in today’s Huffington Post. A wake-up call for politicians, policy makers, urban planners and transport planners.

LSE Cities think tank on cars, bikes and walkability: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

There’s a great quote in a recent Financial Times article from Philipp Rode, the executive director of the LSE Cities think tank, about what’s needed to encourage high tech start-ups in the city, notably “a shift towards inner-city appreciation - what we’re seeing is a return to the city,” as, increasingly, people prize perks like good transport, bike lanes, walkability and sustainability over owning a car or buying a big house.

As the FT reports, Rode reckons the next wave of technological innovations will come from companies that understand how people live in Europe’s metropolitan areas - “the hyper-urban condition created by public transport and higher-density living.” How long before our local politicians wake up and realise that if their answer is “more cars and more car parks,” then they just don’t get it. Now that's what I call stupid.

Walkable Brighton and Hove in today’s B&H Indy

My article on making Brighton and Hove a walkable city - today's edition of the Brighton & Hove Independent.

Carfree in Glasgow: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

In Glasgow last week to deliver a workshop, so, with a bit of spare time to take in the city on foot, here are some observations, anecdotal rather than scientific: one man’s street audit of walkability in Glasgow.

The Good

· Many main shopping streets pedestrianized, with high quality surfaces, particularly in the trophy streets of ‘The Style Mile.’
· Glasgow has become a legible city, with good signage – walking denoted by time rather than distance.
· Some splendid pedestrian bridges and walkways along the Clyde.

· Some bike lanes, a few with physical segregation (although not many cyclists). What’s good for cyclists is normally ok-ish for pedestrians.
· Some 20mph “home zones” in residential areas bordering the city centre, such as north of Sauchiehall Street.
· From an Active Travel perspective, Glasgow has a pretty extensive urban transport system, apparently with plenty of buses, heavy rail and the world’s third oldest underground system. The latter goes by the splendid moniker of The Clockwork Orange.


The Bad

· Away from the pedestrian streets, traffic is fast and unforgiving -Glasgow city centre needs a 20mph default speed limit if it is to be truly safe and truly walkable.
· Pedestrians suffer long waits for the green man at signalled crossings (motor traffic gets priority, big time).
· No sign of an urban bike hire scheme a la London’s Boris Bikes.

The Ugly

· The state of the pavements (‘footways’ in local parlance) away from the trophy streets is about the worst I’ve seen in a British city - broken slabs, misaligned drop kerbs, giving the impression of being uncared for. More like the back streets of Athens than a place wanting to encourage pedestrians.
· The M8 motorway, striding along the edge of the city centre on giant concrete columns.


· Possibly the worst pedestrian approach to any major new museum anywhere in the UK – it’s a shame, and an irony, that Zaha Hadid’s excellent riverside museum – devoted to transport, and stuffed full of trams, trains and bikes (plus a wall of cars) stands in a car park, alongside another major road, with difficult pedestrian access. Not much has changed since this Guardian article in 2011.

Overall verdict
For pedestrians, Glasgow may be miles better, but it still has a long way to go. Here’s hoping that the 2014 Commonwealth Games, when Glasgow will be on view to the world, will offer the chance to get working on some of the issues described above.

Walkability Workshop

Thanks to David Brindley, the Health Promotion Specialist from the Public Health Team at Brighton & Hove Hove City Council for hosting an interesting and informative workshop on walkability, held at Hove Town Hall. The KESUE workshop was run by researchers from Queens University Belfast, who shared information from a study looking at ways to improve urban walkability. One major issue that the researchers addressed: existing route survey data uses the centre line of roads, not footways and paths so this had to be measured and mapped – walkability is about where people actually walk, rather than deriving it from maps based on where vehicles go (a familiar challenge to walkers who use Google maps).

Some other things that came up:

• Mobility issues are becoming more significant for an ageing population.
• Walking networks need to be winter-proof
• The costs of diversions

I’ve included a couple of key slides. The rest are available here.
Hat tip to Andrew Stuck of Rethinking Cities for his note on the workshop.

The Higgs Boson, Mary Portas and Britain’s High Streets

 Two things we learned yesterday about the nature of our universe:

First, the news coming from the scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider: the Higgs Boson particle might exist. And if it does, it will be found. Probaby. By next year. Possibly.

Second, according to “retail guru” Mary Portas, Britain’s High Streets are heading in the opposite direction – towards oblivion. Mary Portas was asked by the British government to report on the decline of the High Street, and has published a report setting out her thinking.

Although she doesn’t use these words, the fate of the High Street in the UK is clearly a Wicked Problem – with multiple causes and no single remedy. (picture from maryportas.com). Mary’s recommendations to halt the decline are listed below:

1. Put in place a “Town Team”: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets

2. Empower successful Business Improvement Districts to take on more responsibilities and powers and become “Super-BIDs”

3. Legislate to allow landlords to become high street investors by contributing to their Business Improvement District

4. Establish a new “National Market Day” where budding shopkeepers can try their hand at operating a low-cost retail business

5. Make it easier for people to become market traders by removing unnecessary regulations so that anyone can trade on the high street unless there is a valid reason why not

6. Government should consider whether business rates can better support small businesses and independent retailers

7. Local authorities should use their new discretionary powers to give business rate concessions to new local businesses

8. Make business rates work for business by reviewing the use of the RPI with a view to changing the calculation to CPI

9. Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table

10. Town Teams should focus on making high streets accessible, attractive and safe

11. Government should include high street deregulation as part of their ongoing work on freeing up red tape

12. Address the restrictive aspects of the ‘Use Class’ system to make it easier to change the uses of key properties on the high street

13. Put betting shops into a separate ‘Use Class’ of their own

One of the facts included in the report is that, “Excluding Central London, high street footfall has fallen by around 10% in the last three years”. Mary attributes this to a range of factors, including internet shopping and the attractiveness of out-of-town (car-borne) retail. Especially where there’s free parking. There is much to support in the report, but it’s a pity that, for all the discussion of footfall, there’s not much consideration of how walkability can enhance the attractiveness and economic well being of our High Streets.
For Mary, the equation seems to be: free car parking = increased footfall => increasing viability on the High Street. It seems that she has fallen into the trap of underestimating the importance of pedestrian activity to the local economy, thinking that is common to retailers and was identified in a recent report from Living Streets.
According to Living Streets, ”a study in Bristol found that retailers on a local high street overestimated the proportion of shoppers arriving by car by almost double at 41% compared with the actual proportion of 22%. In fact, over half of the shoppers had arrived there by foot, and greater proportions had arrived by bus and cycle than those estimated by retailers. The retailers also underestimated how far pedestrians had travelled to get to the high street; over 60% lived within 1 mile, possibly explaining the greater proportion that walked, and pedestrians generally visited more shops than those arriving by car. This misconception of the contribution that pedestrians make to local shops may also explain the importance placed on features to support motorised access (e.g. public transport and parking) by retailers. Improvements to the public realm in Exeter City Centre……corresponded with an increase in footfall of almost 20% over the same period.”

Making Brighton and Hove A Walkable City

At a well-attended public meeting organised by Brighton and Hove Living Streets, we listened and debated as the transport titans of Brighton and Hove City Council - Councillors Ian Davey, Gill Mitchell and Geoffrey Theobald - shared their views on how Brighton and Hove could become a walkable city.*
The councillors agreed that more could be done, and will be done, to improve the city for pedestrians, and the audience joined in a lively debate on what matters most to pedestrians, and how walking in the city could be improved.
Councillors and attendees came up with over 40 practical suggestions and ideas on how Brighton and Hove could become a walkable city, ranging from ambitious schemes like Valley Gardens to issues like 20mph speed limits, pavement parking, street lighting and dog poo. There was a call for more roads like New Road, and a welcome for planned improvements to the Lewes Road.
Living Streets Brighton and Hove plans to hold a follow-up workshop in the New Year to take these ideas forward. Email for details: livingstreetsbandh@gmail.com.
* A walkable city is where people select walking as their preferred choice of travel. Walkability is the extent to which walking is readily available as a safe, connected, accessible and pleasant activity. Walkable Cities have many health, environmental, and economic benefits. Factors influencing walkability include the presence or absence and quality of footpaths, pavements or other pedestrian right-of-ways, traffic and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety.