Bon Appétit: Lunchtime Streets in London

What is Lunchtime Streets?

Source: Active City Network –  https://www.activecitynetwork.com/lunchtime-streets 

Lunchtime Streets is an event that removes motor traffic from a street over a lunchtime period, so people can enjoy their lunch in a safer and more pleasant environment.Making the streets safer for people is key to both the City of London Corporation’s and the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategies. 

We use this type of temporary project to measure the effects and perceptions of the local community when reducing traffic at a peak times, when most people are travelling on foot or bicycle will be key to making the streets safer. The results of the study may lead to future enhancements of the public realm.

It is also a great way to enjoy your lunchtimes. We welcome the involvement of local working, studying and residential community.

The Battle for Street Space – Part I (World Streets Archives)

EARNING A PUBLIC SPACE DIVIDEND IN THE STREETS

– Paul Barter, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, University of Singapore

Abstract: Experiments with shared space or “naked streets” have captured imaginations and considerable media coverage in recent years. Most of the excitement stems from surprise that streets without kerbs, road markings or signage can work well and achieve “safety through uncertainty”. This paper looks at another equally important insight from shared space.

It focuses on a series of innovations that, like shared space, re-arrange the roles of streets in new ways to yield a “dividend” of expanded urban public realm, with little or no loss of transport utility. Such a space dividend should be especially welcome in dense cities that are both congested and short of public space.

Introduction

What are streets and roadways for? An obvious answer is traffic movement. But that is clearly not the whole story. A second role is to allow the reaching of final destinations— the role we call “access”. Thirdly, streets can be valuable public places in their own right. In addition, moving high-speed motor vehicles differ enormously from movement by low-speed, vulnerable modes such as bicycles. Unfortunately, speedy motor traffic movement and the other roles of streets are in serious conflict. For almost a century, the tension between these roles has been at the heart of debate over street design (Hass-Klau 1990; Jacobs et al. 2002). This article reviews emerging resolutions to this tension.

The Battle for Street Space

Op-Ed. Why our cities must act as beacons for ambitious climate action

Source: https://www.climate-kic.org/opinion/cities-must-act-as-beacons-for-ambitious-climate-action/

Cities are a critical player in effective climate action, and many are already making headway where others are falling behind.

Will cities ultimately be viewed as the cause or solution to the global climate emergency? That seems to be the crossroads at which we now find ourselves, and it is a question which is either troubling or inspiring for city planners and mayors alike.

Cities are huge contributors to climate change, responsible for about 70 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions and yet they are also at the frontline of the impacts of floods, extreme heat and drought.

Research by scientists at the Crowther Lab predicted that 77 per cent of cities around the world will experience dramatic change in climate conditions over the next 30 years.

For us, the most effective response begins by helping cities embrace the essential role they play. Cities are a critical player in effective climate action,

• Continue reading – – >  https://www.climate-kic.org/opinion/cities-must-act-as-beacons-for-ambitious-climate-action/

#  #  #

 About the World Streets Climate  program coordinator:

Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)

View complete profile

 

LUNCHTIMESTREETS: A street transformation idea from London :

What is Lunchtime Streets?

Lunchtime Streets Chancery Lane. Tuesday 3rd – Thursday 5th September find out more below!

Lunchtime Streets is an event that removes motor traffic from a street over a lunchtime period, so people can enjoy their lunch in a safer and more pleasant environment.

Making the streets safer for people is key to both the City of London Corporation’s and the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategies.

We use this type of temporary project to measure the effects and perceptions of the local community when reducing traffic at a peak times, when most people are travelling on foot or bicycle will be key to making the streets safer. The results of the study may lead to future enhancements of the public realm.

It is also a great way to enjoy your lunchtimes. We welcome the involvement of local working, studying and residential community.

 

INVISIBILITIES: Just because you can’t see them (or prefer not to) doesn’t mean they are not there.

In a city, as in life, we normally register only what we set out to look for. The anomalies, the absences, the troubling, somehow escape our attention. But when it comes to transport, everywhere the eye might wander there are valuable clues, both visible and invisible, for planners and policy makers. However, if we fail to use our eyes we miss out on valuable information. And as a result our cities do just that much less well.

 

“Street code”: A World Streets Campaign for 2018

The Highway Code: a collection of laws, advice and best practice for all road users, which mainly functions as a written basis for learning to drive as well as stipulating the letter of the law (licensing, required safety equipment, default rules, etc.) In Europe this happens at a national level, with room in some places for stricter local ordinances. In the US mainly a state prerogative. In all cases the code itself is the creature of the automotive age and is primarily concerned with defining the role and characteristics of motor vehicle driver and owner behavior.

Many European cities are of late starting to advance on the idea of establishing a far tougher “street codes”, specifically adapted to the special and more demanding conditions of driving in city traffic. This is becoming especially important as we start to see a much greater mix of vehicles, speeds and people on the street. If streets are for cars, well this is probably not a priority. But if they are “public spaces” and open to the full range of uses and users, then perhaps something along these lines is called for.

The idea is works is that legal responsibility for any accident on street, sidewalk or public space, is automatically assigned to the heavier faster vehicle. This means that the driver who hits a cyclist has to prove his innocence, as opposed to today where the cyclist must prove the driver’s guilt (not always very easy to do).

This is not quite as good as John Adams’ magnificent 1995 formulation whereby every steering wheel of every car , truck and bus would be equipped with a large sharp nail aimed directly at the driver’s heart– but it can at least help getting things moving in the right direction.

We propose to make this a major campaign theme of World Streets in 2018 and invite our readers to submit their reports, ideas and comments over the course of the months ahead.

If you look over toward the top of the left menu here, you will see that we have opened up a reader poll in an attempt to get your views as well. We also invite comment here on the results.

Some first references:

Livable Streets discussions of Street Code
What is Street Code?
Code de la rue – Belgium (Use Translate here as needed)
Code de la rue – France
Code de la rue – Wikipedia

# # #

Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)

View complete profile

 

What’s a Street? (Hint: It’s for sure not a road)

Contents:

1. Wikipedia reminds us

2. Selected WP “Contents”

3. Better Choices: Planners Bookshelf

4. World Streets on streets

What’s a Street? (Hint: It’s not a road)

                                                                             Credit: Team Bruntlett, Modacity Life. Montreal Canada

Contents:

1. Wikipedia reminds us
2. Selected WP “Contents”
3. Better Choices: Planners Bookshelf
4. World Streets on streets

(BC) A New Mobility Strategy for your City

Basic principles and strategies of the New Mobility Agenda

The shift from old to new mobility is not one that turns its back on the importance of high quality mobility for the economy and for quality of life for all. It is not and should not be seen as a step down in terms of life quality.

Op-Ed. Andrew tries to get across the street in Penang.

CONGRATULATIONS ANDREW: Best one-person transportation initiative that I have seen since first starting to follow developments in Penang in September 2013.

The Streets of Chisinau: First glimpses

If you do not know Chisinau and Moldova and want to have a first feel for how the transport scene works there, sit back and have a look. And as you will see from the vantage of what we call “sustainable mobility” it offers a very mixed scene, things that work, and others that could work better. Like virtually every city on this gasping planet. Let’s have a look.

Moldova Chisinau waiting for the bus

Report: “On-Street Parking Management”

 “On-Street Parking Management”

2016-04-05

How to overcome problems arising from unmanaged and illegal parking and how to design and install effective On-Street Parking management? This toolkit from the SUTP will help you design safer streets and may support creating a more efficient street use.

The document provides an overview of the different approaches to on-street parking management and provides advice to policy makers dealing with problems arising from unmanaged on-street parking. It addresses common problems that occur from illegal parking and circulating traffic searching for parking and points out approaches to overcome them. This includes information on the appropriate physical design of on-street parking as well as on the institutional basics and adequate tools for fee collection and pricing.

All in all the toolbox provides information on how to design and install on-street parking management effectively and efficiently and gives advice on how to detect and how to deal with violations of parking rules. Additionally the toolkit addresses the question on how to collect and how to use key parking data to further better on-street parking management.

World Streets Photo Album: 2009-2015

STREET SCENES AROUND THE WORLD

A selection taken from more than three thousand photographs, cartoons, maps, charts and graffiti  from almost as many sources that have appeared in the pages of World Streets since we first went to press in 2009.  Many tell stories in themselves which our readers are warmly invited to complete from their own experience and imagination

Depending on the speed of your internet connection you may have to wait some seconds before the first images appear. From then on all you have to do is click the photo to move on to the next one.

Crossing a Street in Valencia, Spain

Crossing a street in Teheran

Reprinted here because your city should have a Right of Way Law

New York City. Monday, February 16, 2015

Pedestrians With Right of Way Should Always Have Protection of the Law

This article which appeared in edition of our favorite city blog, Streetsblog from New York City, is a gut-wrenching reminder that all cities, all civilized cities, should have a strict, no-exceptions, Right of Way Law. In Europe, this is known as the Street Code (as opposed to the Highway Code that governs traffic on high speed roads).

Jiahuan Xu, 15, had the walk signal when she started across Grand Street in Williamsburg Friday morning. Before she reached the far side of the street, she was struck by a bus driver turning from Union Avenue and “pinned under the left front wheel,” according to the Daily News. After emergency responders rescued Xu, she was taken to Bellevue Hospital and may lose her left leg.

Crossing a street in Tokyo.

“The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”

This for your weekend viewing pleasure just in from Clarence Eckerson, Streetfilms, NYC:

When I first got started making NYC bike advocacy and car-free streets videos back in the late-1990s on cable TV, I didn’t know who William “Holly” Whyte was or just how much influence his work and research had on New York City. A few years later I met Fred and Ethan Kent at Project for Public Spaces. I got a copy of Whyte’s 1980 classic, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, which in its marvelously-written, straightforward style is the one book all burgeoning urbanists should start with.

Recently, I read it again. With all the developments in video technology since his day, I wondered: How might Whyte capture information and present his research in a world which is now more attuned to the importance of public space? What would he appreciate? Are his words still valid?

So I excerpted some of my favorite passages from the book and tried to match it up with modern footage I’ve shot from all over the world while making Streetfilms. I hope he would feel honored and that it helps his research find a new audience.

Dinesh Mohan on The Streets of India, v. 2.0

The Streets of India 2.0

– Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. New Delhi. 22 June 2014

In response to your invitation to comment on the possible new launching of the Streets of India 2.0:

1.       I think you should [continue on this] because a lot of people seem to get information from such sources.

2.       Many expats out of India and other well wishers want to help their “unfortunate brothers and sisters” living here in a “corrupt inefficient land”  They want us to get our act together and reproduce an America or Europe in India. I guess that’s not going to happen. 

View original post 349 more words

“Every day is a great day to take a few cars off the street and think about it”

Who, where in the world is looking at World Car Free Days this morning at http://ecoplan.org/carfreedays/ ?

(Last 200 visitors to the site)