New Year Resolution for Drivers

Because pavements are for pedestrians.

A no-nonsense approach to pavement parking

Seen in the Old Town in Lille, northern France last month.  Mais oui!

It’s my Jag and I’ll park where I want to…

….(to the tune of ‘It’s My Party’).

An egregious example of pavement parking, seen on New Church Road in Hove. For pedestrians, coping with the remains of a sadly fallen tree, a victim of the St Jude storm of late October is one thing. But for a driver to plonk a Jag on the pavement next to the remains of the tree is adding insult to injury. Would it make any difference if, instead of a Jag, it had been a BMW? Or a Mercedes? Or a Fiat Punto? Not really – except that some cars take up more space than others. Whatever kind of car it is, and whoever owns it, parking on the pavement shows a sense of entitlement which disregards the rights of the people for whom the pavement was originally put there – pedestrians and other non-motorised users.

As Living Streets says, “Pavements up and down the country are under threat from inconsiderate pavement parkers. We should all be able to walk on them without worrying about vehicles blocking our way.” Which is why, across the UK, we need local councils to introduce bans on pavement parking. Meantime, you can post photos of pavement parking here. You would cry too if it happened to you…

Cats, Pigeons and Pavement Parking (again)

Here’s my response to the letters in the Argus about pavement parking in Elm Grove, Brighton:
“Stephen Requena takes issue with my letter of 13 October about pavement parking in Elm Grove. He is right to say that, outside London, it is not against the law to park on the pavement – that’s why I was careful not to describe pavement parking as illegal. But the fact that something is not illegal does not mean that it is desirable. For example, it is not illegal to drink excessively, to elbow your way to the front of a queue, or to blow smoke in other people's faces - but all these behaviours are undesirable and inconsiderate. When undesirable behaviour persists, clear rules and sanctions are likely to be needed. This is what happened with pavement parking in London, which is why Living Streets is calling for a similar approach to be adopted in the rest of the country.”

The Cat, The Pigeons and Pavement Parking: Letters in the Brighton Argus

My letter to the Argus about pavement parking along Elm Grove has set the cat amongst the pigeons (or should that be the pedestrians among the cars?) with pro- and anti- letters prominent in today’s paper. My response follows.

Pavement Parking

Pavement parking is currently a major problem in the Elm Grove area of Brighton, and it’s a Living Streets campaign.www.livingstreets.org.uk So I put on my Living Streets hat, and was pleased to see that my letter on the subject is the lead in today’s Brighton Argus. It’s going to be interesting to see the comments. 
“We need to be clear that nobody has “the right” to park their car on the pavement: pavements are for pedestrians, not cars. The problem is that, in many areas, like Elm Grove, there is not enough space on the street to accommodate all the drivers who want to park there. This does not mean that rather than finding somewhere more suitable to park, and continuing their journey on foot, drivers should simply drive up onto the pavement and park there. Cars which block pavements make it difficult, and potentially dangerous, for pedestrians, particularly people with mobility problems, or with children in pushchairs. Cars on pavements also cause damage which costs money to get repaired (and makes walking more hazardous). Health and environment experts say that it’s important to reduce car use, by enabling and encouraging more people to walk as part of their daily routine. This means that we need not just connected street networks and 20 mph speed limits, but uncluttered pavements. It’s clearly essential that everybody works together to try to ensure that a practical solution is found to this situation, whether in Elm Grove or anywhere else in Brighton and Hove. It’s equally clear that the current situation cannot continue.”

Shared Space, Beijing style

 











Drivers in Beijing seem to have a binary conception of the space around them: first, there’s the road, to be used when their vehicle is in motion; second, there’s everywhere else, including the pavement, to be used when their vehicle is not moving.    

 

 

Shown here, some choice examples from my Beijing wanderings. Time for a Beijing branch of Pedestrian Liberation.

Off-Road, On-Pavement

Any child knows that roads are for cars and pavements are for people. Sadly, some drivers are less well informed. This one used the off-road capabilities of his 4x4 to climb the massive kerb of Brighton’s Lewes Road to plonk his tankette on the pavement. Clearly, this was a life or death mission that justified blocking the pavement to all other users. Which is just as well, since, to quote Living Streets:

• People with disabilities, and parents with children in pushchairs are those most affected by vehicles blocking the pavement;
• The damage from pavement parking costs every local authority thousands of pounds every year in maintenance and repair;
• Any signs and physical prevention measures are both expensive and serve only to clutter the street environment;
• Enforcement of the laws can be self-financing, with no cost to the public purse;
• We should be taking pride in our streets rather than cluttering and damaging the pavements through inconsiderate parking.

Clearly, these arguments aren’t as persuasive as they could be - just out of frame of this shot, taken from a bus with steamy windows, a police car sat waiting at the traffic lights at the bottom of Elm Grove.