Commercial Property - Cities for People, NOT Cars

The past 50 years has seen the car take over UK streets. Where children once played in the street, today they’ve been driven indoors to their self-contained play zones. There’s no need to interact or get to know one’s neighbours. Community spirit is crumbling. But there’s good news on the horizon… A new wave of street design has been sweeping the continent and looks poised to bring relief to the UK’s overcrowded streets.

Our local ‘built’ environment has the power to affect our moods and behaviour. It will suggest certain values and can promote positive feelings. But for the past 50 years the streets and spaces where we live have primarily been designed to facilitate the movement of cars. This has frequently had a negative impact on local communities and affected the way we live.

Radical alternatives have been developed on the near-continent, however, pioneered in Holland - by designing towns and cities with people in mind, a safer, more pleasant and sustainable environment can be created with many resulting benefits. These include promoting a healthier lifestyle, reducing crime and antisocial behaviour, cutting carbon emissions and assisting social cohesion – but above all improving quality of life and contentment.

As far back as the early 60s, it became clear that the car was taking over the streets. Children that once played outside in the road found themselves restricted to the pavement and, as traffic increased, were driven to play indoors. Public spaces have increasingly become roads for cars rather than places where people can freely roam and interact.

We need radical new thinking to break this cycle and luckily a new style of street design may hold the answer. By removing traffic signs, road markings, and kerbs, a shared communal road space is created and, contrary to expectation, it has been found to considerably reduce vehicle speed and accidents. Complete removal of traffic signals in some Danish and Dutch towns has given massive improvements in traffic flow and safety. What’s more, a more natural and attractive environment is achieved – one where people have as much right to the road space as the car.

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