The Pedestrian Experience - David Hughes writes

Modern cars are amazing.  Smooth, quiet, reliable, fast, safe, comfortable, warm and conveying very little feeling of speed to their drivers unless the road surface is rough or hemmed in by nearby buildings.  If the road layout permits driving at above 30mph, staying within the speed limit in such a vehicle takes commitment and concentration, and when traffic is light journeys can feel excessively tedious – modern cars have all the characteristics necessary to encourage drivers to speed whilst at the same time isolating them from appreciating how their vehicle affects pedestrians.

Meanwhile to pedestrians on the kerb the experience of a ton or two of metal travelling at 30mph is completely different: to them cars are not only potentially dangerous, they are also intimidating and anti-social, spoiling the experience of walking and deterring people from doing it.  It’s a mismatch which matters in ways ranging from quality of life, to public health (walking is good for you), to the formation of friendships (who wants to chat against a background of speeding traffic?), to the strength of communities (if you don’t chat how can you bond?), to the success or failure of local retail businesses (who wants to shop against a background of fast traffic when they can go to a shopping centre?) and to the climate worldwide.

The strange thing is that all this goes on without the majority of people on either side of the relationship being conscious of it.  It’s as if Joe Blog – or come to that Joan Blog - is actually two people, one who occupies a car and drives too fast for the health and cohesion of the pedestrian community, and another who experiences the dangers and discomforts of being a pedestrian but doesn’t relate that experience to his/her behaviour in a car.

On the other hand both Joe and Joan Blog have noticed that cars driven at 30mph are a danger to their kids.  You can tell because they have chosen to ferry their kids to school in their own car, depriving them of their independence and of routine health-giving exercise, and mopping up their own time which could be better spent.  You might think that, rather than put up with such a health-damaging and time-wasting routine, parents would have campaigned for a lower and well-controlled speed limit of 20mph because at that speed almost no-one would be hit, nor, should the worst happen, would injuries generally be serious.  Surprisingly, this has not happened in any coherent way. 

All of which tends to suggest that we’ve come to accept the way streets are now as inevitable, even appropriate.  This is hard to explain, but two or three factors are probably at work.  The first is where I began: cars have become so sophisticated that drivers substitute the technology of their car for caution and thoughtfulness.  The second is that many people slip on their car as naturally as a pair of shoes and rarely walk, thereby ensuring that they have limited experience of what it’s like to be a pedestrian.  And the third is that we’ve come to accept the current settlement in the streets as either inevitable or the natural order of things.

Which is not the case.  Research shows that, with inexpensive and ultimately cost-saving changes in the streets, journeys made with a speed limit of 20mph would take no longer than they do now.  And there’d be a bonus, kids could reclaim their independence, everyone would be safer, being a pedestrian could be a pleasure again, and people who choose to walk would be a lot healthier.

David Hughes

Improving our Place