Peter Jones is professor of transport and sustainable development in the Centre for Transport Studies at UCL. He was the scientific co-ordinator of the Multi-modal Optimisation of Roadspace in Europe project (MORE). He also heads an MSc course at UCL on Urban Street Planning and Design.

What was the concept behind the MORE project and its overall goals?

MORE was working with five cities across Europe – London, Lisbon, Malmo, Budapest and Constanza in Romania – and taking a fresh look at the city streets. Most of them were last designed around 50-60 years ago purely around increased car use and now it’s about looking at the movement function of those streets and about them being destinations in their own right.

The main goal was about giving streets a movement and a place function and balancing those competing demands between strategic movement function and strategic street function. Many streets have been retro-fitted over the years and they needed to be redesigned to make them future-proof. This meant using a suite of tools including stakeholder engagement, 3D simulation, design optional appraisal and design function.

It’s also about ensuring that those streets can change in the future, possibly even in real-time with LED variable signs for time-sensitive bus lanes, speed limits and tidal flow lanes – some of which are already being used. Further ahead, it’s also about looking at living and working patterns, the likes of drones and accounting for policy changes.

What did you learn from the project?

It made me realise that city authorities are often trying to implement lots of different legislations and many of those play out at street level.

Most policies get implemented on the ground, and that’s where different policies come together and the realisation of those policies occurs. Then you’re trying to blend a microcosm of policy interventions that all play out on the street. But the public only sees that when a new cycle lane pops up or they suddenly can’t go down a road they’ve always driven down.

I feel that cities and governments need to be more proactive rather than reactive in looking at legislation. At the moment, they’re always on the back foot as we’ve seen with the arrival of e-scooters. Cities need zones and a defined performance envelope for that zone, rather than constantly adapting for each new technology.

What advice would you have for people embarking on a project such as yours?

I think involving the public in a cooperative way is the biggest tip. The natural reaction is to stay away from the public and, while the engineers need to give up their authority, they get much more respect in the co-creation process. You’re also much more likely to get something that is accepted.

Normally these things are seen as very technical. The engineers look at a street, come up with a solution, put it out for consultation and then ask for objections, which leads to negativity. By taking the public with you, however, you get more credibility and, ultimately, often fewer objections.

What are the key lessons learned in managing people or resources in the project?

The key lesson follows on from that and knowing that taking the public with you is a longer process. You’re dealing with tricky situations, but if you invest more time at the start, then you’re actually saving time longer term.

Because you’re using scaled plans, people can see the issues for themselves and they can also introduce local knowledge that the engineers might not have or come up with entirely new solutions. Drawing on that other experience can mean the public are co-creators rather than just objectors.

What was the biggest challenge in the project and how did you overcome it?

Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge was Covid. We did meet people but not as much as we would have liked to have done. While we had detailed scaled plans, those are hard to explain online.

We also couldn’t always do physical design days in London, which was an issue, but those we were able to do worked really well. Instead, we used a web-based library with 210 different street design options and each of those had a description and an explanation of their outcomes.

Exclusive to CIHT Members: Want to know more? Listen to the recent CIHT webinar, Redesigning Busy Streets to Support Current Policy Priorities - 18 February 2022 in the CIHT Webinar Library.

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