London’s Do-It-Yourself Approach to Safer Streets

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

London’s Do-It-Yourself Approach to Safer Streets

In the UK, the non-profit Sustrans is pioneering a community-based method to reclaim streets from high-speed traffic and make neighborhoods safer and more sociable places.

Called "DIY Streets," the program brings neighbors together to help them redesign their streets in a way that puts people, safety, and streetlife first. So far, individual streets have benefited from DIY redesigns in 11 communities in England and Wales. Recently Streetfilms got a walk through of one successful DIY project -- on Clapton Terrace in London. With the people who made it happen as our guides, we saw how planners and neighbors collaborated to transform a place where speeding used to rule into a local street with calm traffic and safe space to socialize.

Can the DIY model work on a bigger scale than an individual street? We're about to find out: Residents of the London Borough of Haringey will soon be working with Sustrans on the first neighborhood-wide DIY project.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/maconthehill Mac

Awesome.
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/vhamer vhamer

Fantastic Streetfilm! I could really use some of that on my block. I like that so many people described this process as being about community engagement, not just 'getting what I want.'
Lives in Long Island City

I think NYC could benefit from a program like this. Bring in a traffic engineer and let the people tell them what the streets should be like, and then have a discussion on what is possible.
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/Aaron_B Aaron Bialick

Love it. Wish we could have that kind of expediency.
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/msonn mikesonn

North Beach! Bring this to North Beach. Upper Grant needs it.

More power to London. The lessons are out there, our cities don't have an excuse anymore.
http://www.greenidea.eu Todd Edelman

I really like the straw bales testing bit. This could easily be done with computer modeling based on requirements of emergency services and so on BUT with this method it is more hands-on, much less abstract and, indeed, involving.

Just guessing based on what I can see: If half of the private vehicles could be sold or otherwise relocated (i.e. parked at places where collective public transport lines intersect the motorway) and the rest could be converted using a system like Relay Rides (or if some could be replaced by classic carshare vehicles), a lot more space could be freed up, and, e.g. the street could be split in two, with thru-access only for emergency and utility vehicles (with automatically-retracting bollards). Other short vehicles could turn around with a bit of further modification.

It is a pity about the big road nearby over which the people on this street alone have little influence, but perhaps some sculptures or other features could be installed in the green area to absorb the sound.

But three cheers (!) for Sustrans and the people who live on this street, and I hope that mechanisms like this become more normal and supported (though never top down).
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/Green_Idea_Factory Todd Edelman

In related news "Hundreds of community playground schemes in England are being axed or scaled back because of government cuts." which begs the question that if these are built on transformed roads are they covered by a different budget?
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/lecola RC

really great video. Another great example of how people can combine power to change their own community!
http://www.carfreebaltimore.com Mark

The community garbage bins are a great idea.
Will

Great initiative indeed, but it looks like an upper middle-class street with few businesses.

I'd be interested to see a similar bottom-up movement in a working-class / immigrant neighbourhood and / or with lot of shops and businesses.

Any idea?
Martin Dockrell

I live on the terrace and you know what the best thing about the project was? It got us working as a community. I've lived here for 20 years and until this project kicked off I hadly knew any of my neighbours, now there are people out chatting most evenings.
Chunk

I'm glad they got their street cleaned up. But it begs the question. Why do they generate so much trash? Maybe they should have a monthly community garage sale.
Maharet

To Chunk: I think hey have a lot of trash because there are 80 people living in 17 houses.

I guess that's about 5 people per house, but if each house had several cans...
Adfg

mbt tembea
MBT sandals
MBT Tataga
Ned

We're (hopefully) about to move to Clapton Terrace and this video has really given me hope that this neighbourhood has that rare thing: community in London. I hope that - almost five years on - the benefits of this program persist.

Streetfilms