Better mobility and fairness for all focus needed for Low Traffic Neighbourhood success

The apparently simple features of LTNs – which use strategically placed planters and bollards to redirect traffic away from residential streets – have ignited vocal opposition from those who consider the policy to be “anti-motorist” or even part of an effort to limit individuals’ freedom of movement.

Vaughan Anderson is urban design director at Stantec

But as each chapter seems to get more and more colourful, the LTN debate is sucking oxygen out of the real conversation we need to be having. Improving mobility for all, while enhancing community wellbeing should not be an issue where entrenched sides are taken.

Deciding how we best move around our towns and cities is a central plank of building the society of the future. Collaboration, balance and compromise must be front and centre for something this important.

For a moment, let us forget about LTNs and break out of “motorist”, “cyclist” or “pedestrian” labels and cast a veil of ignorance over contested concepts such as traffic filters and “15 minute cities”. Fundamentally, when it comes to considering the development of our streets, we need to be doing this fairly from the perspectives of all users.

For a society fit for the future, we need our urban areas to be created or adapted in ways which encourage healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. But we also need to support unquestionably better mobility for everyone, from private motor vehicles to active travel, accessibility for the disabled, those in wheelchairs or with buggies. The private car use, in some form, is here to stay. So, the challenge is how we accommodate this while still making progress with a wider variety of affordable and appealing mobility choices.

This is a responsibility that all of us involved in infrastructure design and development must grasp with both hands. We have an opportunity to support communities, to make routes safer, public transport more efficient and appealing and spaces more liveable and prosperous.

To achieve this we need smart, considered, holistically planned urban design along with a proper and robust process of consultation and engagement with the communities who will benefit from the changes. Often, it is poor design or poor communication that drives local frustration, poor attitudes between road users and resistance to new schemes. It is vital that we take a more holistic and integrated approach.

The examples are out there for all to see just how good engineering design and collaboration can help us create healthier, fairer streets for all.

Working with Suffolk County Council, Stantec helped to develop a new methodology to identify a user-led approach to streets. We created guidelines for street design which prioritise active travel over the car and segregate where appropriate. Meanwhile, Waterbeach Barracks in Cambridgeshire has provided miles of new pedestrian and cycle paths which will improve connectivity for residents.

The ideology of “designing with all users in mind” does not preclude residents from using cars. Far from it. But it does help motorists consider and discover appealing alternative approaches through subtle changes. Creating liveable streets which are truly shared spaces for people and cars will better support active travel, encouraging people to lead healthier lifestyles, while providing informal spaces for neighbours to meet, engage with each other and develop a sense of community.

The evidence is that where streets and travel routes are designed in collaboration with communities and when their impacts and contexts are considered holistically, they meet the needs of all users. This LTN review need not be the end of a mobility revolution – it should be the beginning. But let’s learn the lessons of the past and aspire to create ever better places of the future.

• Vaughan Anderson is urban design director at Stantec

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