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There’s lots of discussion about the history of low traffic neighbourhoods and filtered streets at the minute. These aren’t a new phenomenon, they were a feature of Colin Buchanan’s Traffic in Towns report and were called environmental areas.
I’m researching the planning of new environmental areas as part of my PhD but have also come across examples of designs for retrofitting older neighbourhoods.
There’s a good example in this book about planning in Newcastle upon Tyne by Wildred Burns. It proposes a plan for retrofitting Jesmond, a largely Victorian area next to the city centre.
‘Traffic from a wide area seeps through the neighbourhood’
‘It is proposed that there should be only three access points to adjoining motorways, and one further link, underneath the motorway system, to join the neighbourhood to the city centre’
‘From a survey of environmental conditions, we decided that the peak hour traffic from an environmental unit on to the secondary network should not exceed 180 vehicles per hour and ideally should be between 120 and 180 v.p.h.’
Eight environmental areas were proposed: High West Jesmond, La Sagesse, West Jesmond, Reid Park Road/Lindisfarne Road, central, Wellburn Park, Brandling, All Saints.
There would be around 300 dwellings per area and road, rail, bus and pedestrian routes were mapped out.
The motorway was built and the La Sagesse area was completed as an environmental area. Presumably this was all in the 70s. More recently, in 2016, the Reid Park Road/Lindisfarne Road area was completed as per the Burns plan with some help from @carltonreid
There is zero mention of cycling of course, and if you want to know more about why @RorieParsons and Geoff Vigar have written a fascinating paper on this subject.
Not sure we’d plan these areas quite like this now but we will have to deal with the legacy of historic decisions if we’re going to continue with the retrofitting @SPACEforJesmond
