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My latest article is about improving life for pedestrians. For decades we’ve treated anyone on foot as a second-class citizen - that’s a choice we’ve made as a society. We can do it differently. Here are my top 20 suggestions for how. [THREAD] https://www.iain.online/post/twenty-steps-to-paradise
![My latest article is about improving life for pedestrians. For decades we’ve treated anyone on foot as a second-class citizen - that’s a choice we’ve made as a society. We can do it differently. Here are my top 20 suggestions for how. [THREAD] https://www.iain.online/post/twenty-steps-to-paradise](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuBKgttWYAUkpjO.jpg "My latest article is about improving life for pedestrians. For decades we’ve treated anyone on foot as a second-class citizen - that’s a choice we’ve made as a society. We can do it differently. Here are my top 20 suggestions for how. [THREAD] https://www.iain.online/post/twenty-steps-to-paradise")
1. Don’t make pedestrians wait needlessly at traffic lights. Where possible, pressing the button should stop traffic and allow pedestrians to cross right away. On some roads, the pedestrian crossing could default to green, only turning red when a vehicle approached.
2. More pedestrian crossings and longer phases. Allow pedestrians to safely and legally cross bigger junctions on the diagonal. Give them more time too. If you must use subways or bridges, make them pleasant for all users.
3. More pedestrianised areas. Providing people can access them with other means of transport, pedestrianised areas are generally not only more pleasant but more commercially successful.
4. Better lighting. In many locations simply having enough lighting to promote safety will be enough, but in the city and town centres look at decorative lighting, spotlights, different colours and private light displays in shop windows.
5. Improve maintenance of pavements and footpaths. A small investment in clearing litter, cutting back vegetation, repairing pavements and removing graffiti can pay back many times over.
6. Plant more street trees. They really are an unmitigated good nearly all the time, absorbing pollutants, draining stormwater, providing shade, improving safety and making a road feel more pleasant. Get the right species and a proper tree pit.
7. Slow down vehicles in urban and suburban areas. Twenty’s plenty, but signs aren’t enough. The road needs to be designed for slower driving. The most effective way is to narrow lanes, but there are many other strategies too.
8. Adopt Vision Zero. The number of people killed on our UK roads is equivalent to a full 747 crashing every three months, killing everyone on board. One death on our roads is one too many: your life should not be traded off against my desire to get to work 30 seconds faster.
9. More speed cameras and red-light cameras. Thanks to a misguided campaign by Eric Pickles, speed cameras are harder to install. The evidence is clear though: they work. Consider average speed cameras on local roads, especially longer sections with no junctions.
10. Separate pedestrians, cars and cyclists on all but the quietest roads. Implement segregated cycle lanes if you can – research suggests they make everyone safer: cyclists, pedestrians and drivers. Stop pavement parking where possible, using bollards if necessary.
11. Narrow the mouths of roads. A lot of roads have wide, swooping openings designed for cars to speed around the corner without the annoyance of having to slow down. This is terrible for safety and makes it especially hard for anyone with mobility problems to cross.
12. Extend pavements across side junctions. Give pedestrians – and cyclists – priority over cars turning into or out of side roads by having a physical, raised pavement across the junction. Consider implied zebra crossings too, when they become legal.
13. Limit the use of urban roundabouts. Roundabouts can cut accidents and injuries by more than 80%. But roundabouts also make an area feel less walkable – forcing pedestrians to divert away from a straight line. Avoid using them in areas with high pedestrian footfall.
14. Make walking interesting. If you want to get more people walking, avoid long, blank facades and repetitive, boring views. Instead, give people interesting things to look at, with detail at a scale that pedestrians can appreciate.
15. Avoid installing driveways with sloping pavements. We're terrible at this in the UK. Anyone with limited mobility will find pavements that ripple up and down harder to get along. Instead, keep the pavement level and have a sharper ramp at the kerb for cars to drive down.
16. Use natural surveillance. If there’s a pavement, path or an alleyway, consider who might be able to see it. If it’s overlooked by a shop or house, it will feel safer to walk down. If people have to walk between blank walls, they will get in their cars instead.
17. Provide places to rest. Many people can’t walk long distances without a break or would just like somewhere to sit and chat. Benches, parklets and pavement cafes are all great. Parking spaces and loading bays can often be repurposed for pedestrians.
18. Cut pollution. Both air and noise pollution damage our health and discourage people from walking.
19. Introduce Play Streets and School Streets. Have periods of time where children can play out and walk or bike to school, with priority over drivers and restrictions on the motor vehicles allowed on the road.
20. Count pedestrians on streets and at junctions. Collect the data, especially in busy urban centres. We have the technology to do it and the evidence is important.
