As a transport professional and active CIHT member I welcome the current focus on good urban design in our public realm, which now includes the Landscape Institute’s Seven Design Principles for pop-up highway infrastructure. CIHT has also put together a list of relevant guidance and resources for managing streets during the lockdown that will help lock in some of the benefits seen.

The Department for Transport have set an unprecedented challenge to the industry to quickly alter the very fabric of our towns and cities in order to facilitate the easing of the current lockdown and get the economy up and running again.

I am sure that I am not the only one that has been stood in a makeshift queuing system outside a shop thinking that there must be a better design. Our transport planners and engineers only have a limited budget and delivery window to ensure that their temporary schemes are both safe, functional, legal, and not out of place in our public realm. Easy to use and concise guidance on how to do this is key to the pace in which we have to act.

I have facilitated and lobbied for the removal of street furniture for many years and continue to promote active travel projects and policies. We, as an industry and transport professionals, have a once in a generation opportunity to collaborate and create an environment that locks in the positive benefits of the current crisis.

The principles set out in CIHT's Creating better streets are all relevant even more now and good examples from others and collaboration are good themes to add to the consensus on design that is evolving. 

By Nick Ruxton-Boyle

Director of Environment, Marston Holdings

Chair of Transportation Professional Editorial Panel and Transport Planning Society Board of Directors representative