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Radical streets? The impact of innovative street designs on liveability and activity in residential areas

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Abstract

This article aims to understand whether streets designed to be more liveable encourage a greater variety of street users and activities. To date there is little evidence that traffic calming or speed limits alone result in a change in how streets are used. This study is focused on more radical treatments. It discusses UK streets that conform to woonerf design criteria, which in the United Kingdom are called home zones. Seven recently completed new-build case studies were observed for 6 hours each and the nature of activity within the street environments was recorded. The results show that children in particular used the streets intensively for long periods, and that they engaged in a wide variety of play activities across the whole area of the street with relative freedom. Adults were also seen spending time in home zones, but the sense is that this was in response to the children playing there. The results suggest that these more radical street treatments are lived in and used differently compared to streets with just speed limit controls or traffic calming.

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Notes

  1. Two films produced during the study have been posted on YouTube. Search for ‘Children playing in a home zone 1’ and ‘Children playing in a home zone 2’. In this analysis film one was used. Film two was taken on a subsequent occasion.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the URBAN DESIGN Group for funding the fieldwork associated with this project. I would also like to thank the following people for their assistance with this research: Katherine Clegg, Helen Donovan, Ruofan Li and Chris Walker. I would also like to thank Professor Susan Handy, Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California at Davis and Dr Daniel Sauter of Urban Mobility Research, Zurich, Switzerland for giving their time to comment on an earlier draft of this article.

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  1. School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA, UK

    Mike Biddulph

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Biddulph, M. Radical streets? The impact of innovative street designs on liveability and activity in residential areas. Urban Des Int 17, 178–205 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/udi.2012.13

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