At the beginning of this month, I visited a friend who lives in a terraced house in Brighton. She and her husband are both cyclists and therefore I had to squeeze past their bicycles stored in the hall. This is something I remember all too clearly from my childhood when my father’s cycle was similarly kept in the hallway. It struck me very forcefully that this situation has not changed in 50 years. Why do we sanction cars being stored on the public highway, but not other more sustainable forms of transport? Surely if we want to encourage and support active travel, on street, safe, plentiful, attractive cycle storage facilities should be a normal part of the urban street design?
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Then a couple of weeks ago I had cause to complain to the council about the bin workers leaving the bins all over the footway forcing children and elderly people to step into the road to avoid them. Is it so hard to put the bins back where they came from and leave the footway clear for people to use? (Apparently it is.) Again, how can we expect people to walk their children to school when the footways are an obstacle course on at least one day a week? Perhaps local authorities promoting walking and cycling need to take a more holistic approach and ensure all departments are signed up to these principles and policies? Maybe some training for refuse collectors on the best places to leave empty bins to enable people to use the footways safely? And don’t get me started on the parking of the parents of the children who attend my local school.
As highways and transportation professionals, our focus should be on the liveability of streets and how they are used in practice. What can we do to provide safe, enjoyable, beautiful places? On street secure cycle storage should be routine in urban areas, the shortest, safest pedestrian desire line should be accommodated. Footways need to be kept clear for pedestrians, elderly people, people with mobility or visibility impairments, small children, wheelchairs, buggies, and prams. These relatively small problems cause real difficulties to people on a day-to-day basis, and the solutions require an innovative application of engineering, education, encouragement, and enforcement.
So it was a real pleasure this month to visit Faversham on the invitation of the Town Council and meet the Mayor, Alison Reynolds, and the team who have been working so hard to implement a town wide 20mph zone designed to improve safety, promote active travel, and strengthen community links. This project is a brilliant example of how working together can make a real difference, and it was exciting to hear about their work on the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for Faversham and their plans for the future.
On the CIHT front we had a really positive Board of Trustees meeting on the 8th September, it is great to see all the new Trustees finding their feet and making a difference, and of course equally good to see the more established ones, even online. The work on the Strategic Plan continues and we should be in a position to share it with you very soon.
In the middle of the month I was delighted to be able to join the CIHT staff meeting and meet our wonderful team, some of whom have been with us for many years and others who have joined recently. It is clear that the institution would not be as successful or as dynamic as it is without the enthusiasm, commitment and hard work of our staff and it was really important to me to meet them and thank them on your behalf for everything they do and especially their flexibility and resilience over the last year.
Finally, the tragic cases of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard have been prominent in the news recently. Sabina was an ex-student at my university, and there has been a lot of discussion about her murder alongside the sadness and shock at what happened. One of the suggestions was that we should issue guidance to our female students on how to keep themselves safe. Whilst it obviously makes sense for students to be observant and not take undue risks, it seems to me that young women, and older women and men for that matter, should be able to walk in a park without being attacked.
As designers and contractors in the public realm, CIHT members are well placed to make public spaces safer through good lighting, good visibility, CCTV, and the removal or relocation of vegetation and street furniture. Making spaces safer is only part of the solution though, and as a profession that is mostly male, I encourage CIHT members to be proactive in supporting women and challenging behaviours and language that they find unacceptable. Talk to your children about respect for other people and be the best role model you can be at home and at work. Be prepared to stand up and speak out when appropriate, and if you’re not sure, ask how you can help. In the year to March 2020, 207 women were killed and a further 18,229 reported being violently assaulted in Great Britain. Some of these women may be your family or friends, some may be your work colleagues, most of them will be strangers, possibly just taking a walk in a local park.
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