00:00 News from around the country, including a new project announced researching use of car-free routes before and after barrier removal.
07:30 BenTawil and Mike Barclay from Ludicology on Play and Play Sufficiency, including the huge advantages to children’s wellbeing through access to play, and the conditions required for children to play from their front door. Outcomes from Ludicology’s research, including primary research with children and work with local authorities, gives examples of changes and support for play sufficiency interventions, which result in overall community satisfaction and wellbeing.
37:12 Ranty Highwayman on Design Traps. Designs and layouts on roads and streets that lead people into danger. A plethora of examples: poorly considered signs, markings and signal placement; badly placed tactile paving; bollards invisible at night; through to crossings that may invite people into unexpected traffic. Final advice on continuous crossings and clean design.
So on tonight’s active travel Cafe H I am delighted to say that we have Ben and Mike from ludology who are going to talk about uh talk about play uh and I will let them that’s your teaser that’s all you’re getting well I’ll let them uh
Elaborate on that on on on play and place efficiency on what that is later on we also have uh Mark rany highwomen who is going to talk to us about design traps which I I am quite um curious to find out more about uh and um but before that we’ll have probably 10
Minutes sort of Max I think for news because uh because we’ve got two speakers tonight and I’m sure everybody is Keen to go and eat their pancakes if you haven’t done so already um but before I take people’s news uh I’d like to invite Rachel aldd to say something
About an upcoming project Rachel great thanks very much Sally and yeah and nice to to see everyone I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to stay that long but I did want to just announce a project that my colleague Harry larington Spencer is going to be leading um so um she’s got
Funding from motability for a three-year project that going to be monitoring um legitimate and antisocial use on traffic free walking and cycling routes so basically it’s looking at barrier removal and the impact of removing barriers on these kind of routes um so the research is going to be using um
Vivacity machine learning sensors to monitor what’s happening on routs before and after the barriers are removed so basically we’re looking for local authorities um who are Keen to participate in the project and we would study um both a route where the barriers are removed um for 12 months before and
Around 24 months after and we would also be have a control route within the same local Authority that we would compare um with so we have one route where the barriers stay and one route where the barriers are removed um and so so basically we’re looking for anyone who’s
Working transport teams or local counselors who are interested in a traffic free route in their area being a case study in the research so um basically please get in touch with Harry who can provide more information um and arrange a teams meeting to discuss I’m just going to put Harry’s email address
Um in the meeting chat as well so hopefully this is a really nice opportunity to look at what happens um when these routs are opened up to more users and we’ll be able to see how usage changes and comp comp that to a route where um the where barriers are not
Removed so brilliant thank you thank you yeah and it’s great news I think that’s a really exciting project looking forward to to seeing seeing what she finds um can I take anyone else’s news I’ve got Ruth you got a hand up so do you want the good news or the bad news
First oh I don’t know Ruth you you decide uh let’s do the really good news then the exciting news is Hammer Smith Bridge today was open for cycling and Yan and I went over it about 20 times just to prove it along with quite a lot of other people uh Charles Campion from
One of the Hammersmith Bridge Project for keeping it for walking cycling and an alternative form of Transport for people who genuinely need um I did quite a long piece on BBC Radio London which you can listen to at 0806 I don’t know how to post that but maybe Adam Reynolds is clever enough
Because I’m no good at that BBC Radio London o 06 for those of you who can access it he did a wonderful piece uh which was very good so it was absolutely fantastic and lots of people were using it uh this the sad news that’s not my
Bad news is that it’s only for 10 weeks allegedly because West Ham fans in a boat drove into some kind of stuff underneath that the engineers need to be able to carry on repairing the bridge um the problem with Bridge as you all know
Is uh if it were to be made suitable for or driving well all the cars are now too heavy and the buses are too heavy and Leo Murray who’s often on here if possible they’ve got a wonderful scheme so the good news is it is open for 10
Weeks and they will see a huge number of people cycling over to it especially on Monday when our schools go back because we’re on Halter this week so that’s really exciting news the really depressing news though is and I’m going to read this very quickly uh dear all we
Hope this email funds you well we are now able to share an update on the Notting hillgate action plan so very excitingly Shephard’s Bush roundabout which is really really nasty and at one point is six or eight Lanes of very fast traffic they have proposed tfl have
Proposed a wonderful scheme to be able to walk and cycle safely round it senior leadership of nottinghill gate action plan have taken the decision to pause the consultation due to opposition mounting to the proposed tfl Holland par roundabout cycle aim there are concerns that all the great work on the Notting
Hill gate action plan including the contributions of the community working group will get get lost in the interest and discussions about the cycle a well most of the action plan that they’ve done is little bits of titting about here and there with the odd um you know occasional closure and raise table and
All the rest of it so that is tragic for West London because it’s another scheme Holland Park Avenue people have been killed people have been injured um Tony devonish blocked is the LA member a consultation without even allowing that go going ahead so we’re all a bit
Devastated in West London on that front so I’m sorry fabulous news really not news good news oh I’m sorry about that um you win some you lose some um Ben you got a hand up right um yeah hopefully I can raise the mood after that um so
About a year ago Bedford bur Council made its entire active travel team redundant um last week at the um budget meeting the council agreed to fund um a new active travel team so you know it’s only only be a little bit more than a year without such a team in
Bedford thank you Ben um and H yeah I got it um first of all nice on Ruth to the Hammer Smith Bridge um Mark posted some pictures I’ve got some pictures of it before in looks a bit cosmetic if they just laid Tac on the
Old plates and the old plates were in a bad State um on Rachel’s news I commented to Harry canal and River trust are notorious for those barriers can we actually get them on board and and find out what’s going on because that that’s um quite bad and good to hear about
Bedford um I go back to 1987 in Bedford with the experimental Harting for Berry cycle route which included a bus stop bypass very yeah I’ll go into that in a bit more details off offline but definely put it in the chat put it in the chat H
That’s great good to hear those things thank you um does anybody else have any last pieces of news before we move on to our speakers no uh great because we because we are we have got two tonight and it would be good to to finish on time so um
And with that I would love to introduce um Mike and Ben from ludology uh who are going to talk to us about play and place efficiency and something which is of great interest to me personally and hopefully uh will you will all enjoy uh so over to you do you
Want to try sharing your screen yeah fingers crossed everybody is that good great okay um right yes got a few slides to take you through talking about Place efficiency in our our work involved in doing exactly that um and we’re happy to take questions later on uh General comment 17 from the United
Nations committee on the rights of the child identifies players of right poorly met by All State parties uh and in that General comment the committee recommended that State parted introduced legislation to support children’s play based on the principle of play efficiency when they did that it was a tacit endorsement of the
Pioneering approach already taken in Wales where Welsh local authorities have a statutary duty to assess and secure the sufficiency of children’s opportunity to play and at the heart of that legislation is the understanding that where conditions are right children will play and that in doing so they can
Support their own and other people’s well-being in many ways the that the Welsh policy is radical policymaking at its best and it can be seen as part of a The Wider well-being AG gender in terms of the well-being of future Generations act in Wales Place efficiency in particular prioritizes children’s play
Uh an agenda that matters significantly to them but is regularly overlooked and marginalized by adult adult political and economic agendas so in uh in Wales and now in Scotland we have a legal duty to assess Place efficiency but we think that General comment 17 provides at least a
Significant advocacy tool for those in England to advocate for Place efficiency there’s also a large body of work evidencing both with the wide ranging benefits of children being able to play outside in communities without the need for adult supervision and that where those opportunities aren’t possible the
Resulting harms are at least as wide ranging as are benefits given children are when the conditions are right capable of playing and supporting their own health and well-being and that there are strong ethical moral economic and environmental Arguments for producing those conditions we need a research approach that will
Works to identify the influencing variables and how they relate to the opportunities to play in local communities Place efficiency is concerned really with all aspects of children’s play lives but by far the greatest constraints on children’s opportunities to play exist in the public realm again largely due to economic interests being prioritized
Over broader well-being issues um and this makes children’s cap capability to play out and about in their neighborhoods an issue of spatial Justice arguably traditional approaches uh to providing for play that are focused on fixed equipment playgrounds whilst important to children have serve to reinforce the notion that when
Children play in other places they are seen as being out of place spatial Justice really uh aims to turn that idea inside out turn the playground inside out uh to think more broadly about neighborhood design spatial layouts that better support the conditions under which children can play and securing and improving Place
Efficiency relies on the Dual processes of adult accountability and responsibility this means accounting for the realities of children’s player lives and we do that through research with children and adults in their local neighborhoods this revealed much about the variables that influence play opportunities and how those variables play out at a local
Level the evidence gathered from that research informs adults response ability I.E enabling them to work with the influencing variables to create conditions that better support opportunities for players and those responses can happen on both macro and micro levels at organizational level and neighborhood level um we’ve been looking enough to
Spend our time researching Place efficiency over the last 10 years um and we’ve done that at kind of neighborhood local Authority and National levels and we still do primary research ourselves um but we’ve come to recognize that the most sustainable and potentially far-reaching benefits can be gained
Where people are supported to do this work for themselves so our favorite approach to doing work now is um that we Mentor people through either a kind of countywide or neighborhood um level knowledge transfer partnership so we’re supporting them to implement our tried and tested Place efficiency methodology and in this countywide
Example from our work with leads um essentially what leads have been doing over the last couple of years is hyperlocal research in six priority neighbored areas and then they’ve been using the evidence generated to compare and contrast that with the work of the local Authority and its partners and in
Doing so they’ve been able to identify ways in which organizational systems can be developed to better respond to issues of place efficiency um we should note that this is their slide um evidence if it were ever needed that they’re conversent with the principle of place efficiency and as outputs of the process
That Leeds have been through over the last couple of years with with our support um you can see and I’m just going to read from this slide so uh they’ve got a place efficiency assessment report which identifies current levels of satisfaction strategic priorities strengths and weaknesses of organiz izational systems and recommend
Areas for improvement uh they’ve achieved a strategic and cross- departmental action plan that makes best use of their human and Financial Resources informed Place efficiency partnership and governance model uh for that strategic group and the establishment of local place efficiency Partnerships at neighborhood level uh if you’ve been following news
Uh on Twitter it’s been really exciting in terms of place efficiency and uh child friendly planning Etc but leads are the first uh city in England to achieve executive board endorsement of the principle of Cl efficiency uh with direct links to child friendly leads the physical physical activity ambition and
Children people’s plan uh they’ve appointed an executive member the member for children and social care and health Partnerships as their player champion who will raise awareness of play sufficiency support the work of play efficiency across all directorates of the Council and drive the development of place efficiency action plan providing
Annual oversight of progress to the executive board this is really really significant developments uh in in England uh and finally executive board support for embedding the place efficiency recommendations within localized level priority neighborhood partnership plans what doesn’t immediately jump off this page is is is um the transformational effect of the
Programs and enabled uh in leads which is essentially enabling adults to hold established practices up to scrutiny and to see achievable possibilities for beneficial change both within and across professional disciplines and silos uh and what’s emerged is a kind of common goal as increasing numbers of people across the authority have come to
Recognize the influence of their work on Place efficiency um with that with that kind of count County WI process the emphasis is very much on using the evidence from research to develop organizational systems that can better support a localized response to place efficiency um the emphasis of our neighborhood
Model is on using using the evidence from research in a particular locality to co-construct with that Community neighborhood level plans for play and sociability uh the example here is taken from our work in um with three rural communities in southwest Wales and again as in the lead’s example what maybe
Matters most is um the outcomes that come about as part of the process of assessing Place efficiency and the transformational shift in the way the community thinks about children childhood and play and how responses to play differ as a result and this is a really lovely example of a kind of concept
Neighborhood plan that that the community of three Coxs developed as part of the um Neighborhood Place efficiency assessment uh and you can see that I you know I can tell you you might not be able to see it’s a small computer screen but the plan does include improvements to uh equipment in
The designated play areas uh but it also comprises many more and wider reaching interventions that predominantly address children’s freedom of movement across across their community and the provision of incidental opportunities for both play and sociability and these were all interventions that both children and adults came to recognize were were
Mutually beneficial for for all residents of this community so we can see that safer Roots active travel Place efficiency uh happy bedfellows they they’re complimentary agendas for Community satisfaction and well-being especially where people pay attention to how children’s use of space is different to adults and where as a result of
Incidental and designated playable spaces um any intervention in terms of active travel and safer routs takes account of how children use space and and and Pockets playable spaces as part of that Network so so that’s kind of our our little presentation Thank you very for
Having us I’m Ben and this is Mike I think we forgot to mention that at the beginning and and these slides will be shared and there are links there to uh various bits of information that that might be interesting to people thank you thanks for having us
Thank you thanks Venom white that was fantastic um and I haven’t looked to see if there are any questions yet I will do in a minute but I just wondered first whether um because you talk about that kind of organizational systems and and that need to change what is it that you
Think uh fundamentally needs to change within and that might be different across different authorities but the way that local local authorities operate is obviously in this very kind of Silo fashion with transport being in one box and public health being in one box and often children are in another um what
What what do you think you know what is it that what are the sort of problems and potential solutions to some of that um so well one of the problems in respect of for for children is is that they’re that really their players NE their play has never been treated as a strategic
Priority um you know I’ve worked in local Authority for 10 years and used to remember seeing a big list of all the things that we needed to do as priorities for children and families and play would appear somewhere down the bottom uh and children write that stuff
The other way around meeting up and playing with friends is absolutely absolutely at the top of what matters to them um so one of the things that we need to do is find a way of um positioning children’s play alongside other strategic priorities and I think that’s what the principle of play
Efficiency does it legitimizes time and effort spent supporting play and puts it on a kind of an even kill with other strategic priorities um and then I think the one of the very interesting things to come out of the research in Wales where you know they’ve had a Place efficiency Duty
For 10 years is the um impact of that Duty on partnership working there is something about this idea that um everybody has experience of play personally either when they were children or in their private lives with their children they’re connected to um there’s something of Common Ground there
That means that everybody actually has some knowledge and experience to offer but also I the thing we’ve really noticed recently I think is just that you know it’s it’s quite a hopeful and dare I say kind of joyous thing to be involved in there’s a lot of
Things to be down about and actually when you do research with children and find out that they’re incredibly good at playing in spite of all the constraints uh and that that itself giv gives adults hope that things are possible and that can bring people together in in and of
Itself yeah I think that’s something pops we don’t really think about enough really and um you know putting putting the argument that things sort of have to change across the board um I can see a few questions now uh so I will take these first um uh Matthew sned uh did
You find your local director of Public Health and Ally directors of Public Health generally yeah regularly yes I think people in public health recognize that probably the most direct link between play and any beneficial outcome is is physical mental health and wellbeing for children uh in leads we there was a
Particularly useful uh and committed uh public health specialist Sally Hall unfortunately she’s left Lees now and gone off to to uh hi heidleberg in um in Germany but on our website she writes a a lovely reflection on going through the process of place efficiency in leads with her health play special uh Public
Health specialism hat on and her move to heidleberg where if you don’t know many of the things that I’m sure you’re you’re all talking about in terms of active travel and many of the things we’re talking about in terms of place efficiency have been policy Initiative for the last 30 years so yeah
Public health is really good how much play could could or should children be able to have in their streets outside their homes uh the the fa answer would be a sufficient amount um as much as as much as they want um it’s their street their citizens too um and the public
Realm should be shared equitably amongst all residents of all communities Um I think R’s question isn’t interesting on how do we get these plans how how do we ensure these plans are not derailed by for example the police who think and actually to be honest how how do you how do you stop them being derailed by just local people who
Complain social behavior the really important thing we touched on Mike touched on in terms of co- construction it’s about taking everybody on the journey and some sometimes that’s about taking a step back uh before you move forward to get to get everyone on the same page so lots
Of this place efficiency work is about is about researching with children and adults in the countywide research those adults include professionals and officers and parents and and just adult community members that might not have be parents and carers um and and kind of enabling everyone to go on that journey
To think about what are the assets that contribute to community well-being and what factors negatively influence them and how can we develop plans to make our communities better for everyone and very often that eases tensions around one specific element like you know they all play football
Against the Gable end of my house and well if you put a bench there they’ll all sit in it um because we’re looking from a bigger perspective about how we solve those problems um so that they don’t come about in the first place but very often you know what what is considered
Antisocial behavior is because too many children are competing over access to one space that they like whereas actually let’s talk about multiple spaces for play and sociability and that decreases tensions around contest over space increases usership of public space decreases fears about people that we don’t know um and and people’s world
View about what communities streets Bush shelters can be used for is Cheer it as a result of the research work yeah I’ll just add to that that I think also there’s you know there’s real value in doing research with children and kind of showing that to adults because I think
Often children are treated as some kind of homogenized Mass you know all children are like this uh we don’t tend to say the same thing to adults we like to treat adults as though they might be individuals and we don’t do the same thing for children we can reveal that
Actually most children are just looking for good enough opportunities for play um and I think it’s also about bringing more positive voices to the floor so in reality most people are supportive of children’s play most parents want their children to be able to play in their neighborhoods often the voices we hear
Are those that complain loudest and we need to balance those by bringing the other much more positive and supportive voices to the four yeah I think that’s that’s a kind of yeah and it’s work it takes work to do that doesn’t it I’m just looking at
What else we’ve got here um Adam my English council is currently Consulting on a new local plan how do we use Place efficiency to influence this who’s taking that I mean you could go to our website and and steal all the free resources there about Place efficiency
And and you so we’ve got we’ve got a a really useful resource um play Play efficiency of Public Health priority that’s a really good blog that you can use to inform yourself about how you might Advocate we’ve got playful Community is better for everyone we’ve got play in the child friendly City so
There’s a range of blogs up on our study page and our stor room that will be really helpful in sort of thinking about who you can Target and why they might be interested in the place efficiency argument but but also go and download General comment comment 17 from the UN
Committee because it’s actually very readable uh and it you know like we kind of mentioned Wales and Scotland have got uh staty duties around this but and England hasn’t or or Northern Ireland but you we have got General comment 17 where it’s quite explicit that you know that approaches supporting children’s
Right to play should be based on the principles of place efficiency and and the other thing that is would be really useful and very timely a few councils going through that at the moment the department for leveling up housing and communities is currently in the midst of
An inquiry into children young people in the built environment uh you can watch that on Commons t TV uh and there’s some really really uh useful uh evidence and information as part of the video footage but also as as as part of that inquiry that you can Avail yourself of and the
Council should be interested in yeah absolutely we we’ve also got a new local plan consultation here and um and he just set aside some time to look at that but um I think yeah you’ve got to take these opportunities where you can to try and put your you put across
Something different uh Tim Morton says uh I was late you may have already said this but conscious that Mak space for girls warn that a lot of provision for children turns into provision for boys what do you think about that yes um and I think that um a lot of that
Is caught up about the fact that we have assumptions about what play is and what forms of player of value you know even the design design of lots of fixed equipment playgrounds are really you know based on theorize theories of play that are associated with you know letting off steam
And large motor activity yeah you know they’re based on gyms you know it’s about physical activity and that’s the form of play that has been valued and promoted which is often uh create spaces that may be more attractive to uh boys that to play sport
Uh and that has been to the expense of other forms of playing and we see that in the design of school playgrounds for example as well that kind of are more akin to car Parks than they are to really spaces that you might want to best support diverse forms of playing um
So yeah absolutely again I think when we do research with children and that means a variety of children uh including girls less sporty boys uh neurodiverse children children with protected characteristics we reveal that there’s many more ways in which children want to be able to play um and that there’s
Different approaches to providing that which would actually create much more sufficient opportunities for lots of people you know it’s this idea that if we if we pay attention to difference that’s how you make really inclusive neighborhoods but that isn’t NE everybody having to play in the same place it’s again about
Variety it gets but goes back to that what is play which is often so narrowly kind of conceived by adults who think of it as a certain thing but it could just be hanging out and you know messing around or you know it’s that sort of um
What what is play H Rachel wion has asked do you come across local authorities that remove the things that get vandalized that seems to be the approach here so uh kids have fewer and fewer places to hang out how do you counter that um yes we certainly have come across
Lots of those communities and I mean it it’s very difficult with um shrinking public spending resources um and I think it’s this point about yet you know you have to position the our analysis of children’s play Within the wider kind of geopolitical economic context of their
Lives um you know I was in clle just last week and there is no getting away from the fact that the you know very significant constraints on children’s opportunities for play stem from issues to do with you know structural marginalization and and poverty um and that you the you know a
Fixed equipment playground alone is not going to resolve those issues it needs a broader more comprehensive respon response which is why we need to involve people from across departments and with partner organizations for example people involved in community safety Community Development public health and so on um I
Think where we’ve got issues of vandalism we need to we need yeah a much broader response uh than fixed equipment Alone um and I don’t know if we’ve got any more questions do wave if you you have another question I was just going to ask you because often when we have
These discussions about play and we talk a bit about the street but often um I think that the focus ends up going but even though you as you’ve kind of set out we need all of those things you know we need children need to be able to move
Around their neighborhoods you know as they get older they move tend to move further further and further out and um how given how difficult it is to to of to change streets to sort of make them more child friendly um um both because of political will but also because they
Are so quite narrowly defined as being movement corridors often um how that how do we change that how do we join the dots between this idea that children should be able to actually have physical places that actually might have equipment in or whatever it is places to
Hang out but and how and the and the streets where they also might play but also might move through how do we kind of join those dots in the you know in terms of thinking about Highway engineering um that’s a well I think I think it depends on both infrastructure and
Activation um I think it’s worth recognizing that children are incredibly good at making do if they have something to make do with and that that they’ll they can have sufficient opportunities for player with access to no play equipment at all if they’ve got a sufficient range of spaces and people to
Meet up with so it isn’t necessarily about lots of uh expensive play provision but certainly uh where we’re developing new neighborhoods we should be designing them in such a ways to that supports children’s freedom of movement and there are interventions that can be made in existing you know things like um low
Traffic neighborhoods um whilst maybe not in you know primarily provided for children’s play are certainly supportive of children playing out but I think there’s also a lot that has been done successfully with activation you know if you look at the kind of um playing out play Streets model playwork projects um
Paretic kind of Street play initiatives these things that you know on their own might seem like relatively small interventions but they start to change the culture of communities as you know know play itself is a form of re-enchantment it it can reconnect people H and sometimes it’s about starting with small interventions
That then snowball into into bigger things and and the wonderful thing about children is they’ll appreciate the smallest of efforts we make so we might not be able to change Road layout but we can close a street for a couple of hours once a week and make sure that stuff
Starts to starts to shift yeah great well thank you both so much um for coming and sharing your work and I hope everybody will go away and and recommend that your local authorities look up Mike and Ben and maybe uh write to your MP and suggest that uh the next government might look
At Place efficiency in England um so yes thank big big thank you from all of us uh and if you don’t mind uh sharing your slides we can put those on the website along with the video um brilliant and now we’re moving on to Mark are you there Mark I’m here
Right I am quite intrigued by this so I’m just going to hand over to you mark to introduce your slot this week right uh why can’t I ever get the little bar at the top you can’t a little bar at the top can you hopefully so let’s crack on
Noo um so those of us of a certain age will know who that is uh and I’m afraid that’s about as funny as this one gets because it’s going to get very serious very quickly so we’re going to be talking about designs layouts on roads and streets
That create traps and we’ll end with a bit of a case study um some people may have heard of it but we’ll get there so’ve got a series of photos just a I guess increasing levels of Despair as we go through here but it’s definitely worth bearing in mind so this
Is um quite hard to see on the road it’s right hand Bend um but for some reason um the Chevron bards have been knocked over probably that one down circling the yellow um edging some has put it in because that’s aimed at traffic coming other way for a left hand Bend but you
Can see it from the wrong direction so it’s a cold dark sideways rain night uh somebody may get it wrong so from a maintenance point of view we can put stuff back and cause a problem we then have this layout here so couple of Lanes on the road there oh I
Want to turn right uh again in in a fit of not paying enough attention do we run the risk of people turning right um heading the wrong way around a roundabout um roundabout should be marked um in this situation that left Lane’s fine the right hand lane should be ahead because
You can only join a roundabout and go ahead in that position pretty common um we shouldn’t be doing it that will come up in rotate fit all the time uh inconspicuous Street Furniture this is absolutely everywhere so at least in the photograph you can see the Ballard um it’s ruined what little width
Of the shared use path we had again come back at night um it’s a bit bit foggy maybe Street lighting not very good that’s the sort of thing that injures people all the time um we shouldn’t be using bards unless we absolutely have to and if we do use them they should be
Conspicuous during day and night and probably we should be making them forgiving rather than out of cast iron another classic um this is probably from Westminster of memory serves so some misleading uh tactile paving so the actual crossing point is running out to the right you can just see the studs at
The top of the photo here so this is aimed at helping people cross to the right but of course those that rely on blister tax behaving need to align themselves with the dots so it’s just as EAS easy to align yourself going ahead and end up walking who knows where um
Tactile behaving also should be read unless it’s a conservation area and you’ve very carefully considered it but the main issue here is is those um lines of studs sending people into the road um see through signals is another common thing and that can be for anybody who aring signals basically looking at
The wrong one uh West India dock in London cycleway 3 it’s still like it to this day um so if you’re joining this I’m roughly taking the photograph for somebody heading off into the distance there um the signal that’s aimed at me is actually circled in green probably
Where I’m standing I’m looking at the one circled in red um which is fine because I’ve stops except they operate independently so if the one I’m looking at which is circled red turns green when I should have stopped then a skip lry coming from my right is going to collect
Me um got to be very very careful how we arranged this I I would have had the uh one circled in green on the left hand side um so it’s much much more obvious who that’s aimed at absolutely classic we keep doing it um so we’re starting to get a bit
Darker with these so this was cycleway 6 um some time ago Mark Strong remember this one this was the evening we went to have a good look at it um so what happened here was originally um Step cycle track curb separation between the cycle track and and general traffic um there was an
Upstand left on this curb on the inside um so if you got a little bit close to that and you caught your wheel 50/50 chance of which way you’re going to fall um always a problem with curbs when we leave up stands they’re not forgiving
Even the curb on on this this side is not forgiving um absolutely classic there was an issue I believe around here where people were mistaking that curb for a white line as well and trying to cross it uh and obviously you can see what would happen with that uh very very
Soon after and I don’t know if it was because we started posting this on Twitter at the time um but this was very hastily um adjusted so that’s now a proper step track so you can still fall off the curbing into the road you could
In theory go on the road and and catch yourself trying to mount the track if you got that wrong um but it’s that inside upstand which was the issue there um this one i’ I’m struggling to get the bottom of it because I’ve not seen any actual photos which haven’t been
Sensationalized however um this is High Street keenam from what I’m reading there’s lots of people tripping over and getting it wrong very easy to say well people should look where they’re going and all that kind of thing but we’ve got very complex layer out here uh lines of
Bard Planters is it a white line or a curb there is a very very low upstand to the curb running along this cycle track cycle Lane I’m not quite sure what it is um the message here is we really want to try and make these layouts simple because in a High Street situation
People will cross where they light that’s that’s the point of um movement in High Street between shops so we need to be very cognizant of that’s what people will do um let’s not leave curbs that may or may not be the right height um yeah may not be a problem with the
Cycle Lane here actually maybe just the way they’ve done the curbs but again absolutely classic I will come back to that issue about curbs and visibility and everything else um in another addition um this is down um Canaan in Wales South Wales Victoria dock now the bod you can see in the
Distance at one point had the same change you can see on the left hand side uh and unfortunately somebody was cycling along just just coming back from an event um that was their route home they went through hit the chain hit the head and that killed them um we really really shouldn’t have
Anything straddled across any route that people might go and it doesn’t matter if it’s a highway or not if it’s open and it’s private but you’re letting people through you need to be very very careful about uh your liability there um another one unfortunately um somebody died here
This has all changed now you can go back into Google and have a good look around on first glance it’s a dual carriageway so as you cross the Dual carriageway as a pedestrian you look left for the first two lanes and right for the second two lanes or vice versa
Depending which way you’re going um this is really really weird because actually it’s a dual carriageway but the two carriageways are doing different things so the black carriageway on the right is one way as you’d expect the carriageway on the left is a two-way bus and taxi Lane
So what actually happened in in this particular circumstance is the person crossing the second area the this this two-way bus and taxi Lane um looked in the wrong direction and hadn’t realized that there was traffic coming from the other the other way there was one of these down in grenage on the peninsula
Um that’s been changed as well now it’s a really really hazardous layout you can see the shops on both sides so you’re going to expect people crossing the going to the buses and everything else so again be aware of um uh misleading directions you can paint what you like
On the ground people get conditioned to look in a certain direction as they cross the road okay um this one’s a bit closer to home because I actually was a witness at the inquest on this particular one um as it turns out the road out
Here um you still find quite a few of them um they’re in the design Manu for roads and bridges and what’s Happening Here is there’s a piece of locally jeweled road so left hand lane is going off to the distance there’s a right hand lane coming towards us over there and
This is It’s a t Junction the issue here is Sandy Lane which is the road that goes off to the right into the distance very very busy Quarry traffic um makes two stage right turn so you cross the first traffic lane to get into this area
Then you give way to join the traffic lane going away from you and it’s in theory it’s it’s quite good separating the movements and breaking them down into um s Crossings of carriageways um it’s quite confused the J the Dutch have their um priority Square type Arrangement which is much
Much safer than this because things are properly separated within the middle um the problem with this particular lout was somebody involved in this particular Collision misook this for a roundabout so they were lost um they taken a wrong turn somewhere they wanted a U-turn to go back on themselves and the driver at
The inquest he admitted he thought it was roundabout he got confused did a u-turn here um but you don’t have priority to do that he was collected by skip laor coming the other direction um and that killed his passenger um Highway Authority nothing nothing happened beyond that particularly um it was a
Layout which is as I say design man roen Bridges so it was fine it was of its time luckily that is now a proper roundabout um bit of a legacy thing here from probably 70s 80s that’s when it was built okay case study some people may
Have heard of this one this is quite famous in um highways terms so we’re up to cdale in West Yorkshire this is the b613 greetland road uh you can kind of see it here from um last year that’s what it looks like um Country Road uh goes off up a hill there’s a
Bend afterwards that you can see from the sign here so there’s something going on here so let’s let’s take you through what happened um back in 1996 so you can read it for yourself so Denise Goring essentially was going along this road um up on the
Crest um there was a bus coming other way it’s well known as the barers land Vamp she was local there’s been lots of crashes and lots of recommendations to do things in the area um so there was a crash um she was pretty badly hurt um so this went to Colt she was
Claimed the council was at fault for not warning of this particular Hazard head so that’s that left turn um kind of blind Crest there um there had been evidence of slow marking so if I just go back here quickly oops go back here so you can see the slow marking here so at
Some point the road had been resurfaced before the Collision but these markings hadn’t been put back and certainly there’s none of these signs at the time let’s go back here um so she sued the council um two parts her Claim about the council failing its Duty the first one
Was section 41 of the highways act and that was the council failed to maintain maintain the highway as in they didn’t reinstate the slow markings also section 39 of the Road Traffic regulation act about not providing a warning of the the hazard so failing in its General Road
Safety care so section 39 is a general duty um around care of um care of Duty for road safety um you can go and read it for yourself so this is this is what it kind of bounces around a bit so it went to the high CT and they actually found for
For Denise Goring um and that was on the basis that those slow marking should have been replaced I.E maintained because it’s part of the highway um called that our Council appealed um and the call of appeal allowed the appeal to proceed and their interpretation was that section 41 does
Not require signs of mar markings to be provided um and it’s quite interesting here because the fact that the slow markings had not been reinstated after resurfacing counted as not being provided had it there been warn and there was evidence that um things were damaged and that kind of thing that just
Hadn’t been repaired that’s a slightly different emphasis but the fact was there was when she drove there there was nothing there um and she should have taken the road as she found it which is quite an interesting Le precedent now um during the the case that they discovered that the council was keeping
Records of collisions um so there’s lots going on here they’re collecting data on it and also that the council had a general road safety program it’s just it hadn’t chosen to do any treatment work um for greetland Road however the court said it’s not their job to interfere in
The program of work and have Council prioritize um and you’ll find the courts don’t want to get in that because soon as Court start to get into that level of detail they set precedence for other cases and it’s it’s a big issue for local authorities who are getting more
And more crapped as we go so Goring appealed the high court it went to the House of Lords which is now the uh Supreme Court um and the House of Lords dismissed the appeal and the House of Lords basically confirmed that in terms of section 39 this general duty
It’s a general duty to the public at large and not a duty of care to individuals so you take the road as you find it is um where this has ended up with um as long as you don’t lead people into a trap which is kind of the point of uh the talk
Tonight um Lord Roger of er’s Brie said it Su up this is quite an important um uh roundoff here so it follows from all of this that sympathetic though evitably one must be towards somebody civilly injured as Mrs Goring she cannot look to Cale for any part of for loss its only
Duty towards her was to maintain the physical condition of the highway as it did and not to ens snare her in unforeseeable danger so in other words the council’s job was to provide a reasonably um safe surface on on the uh the carriageway there um but there was
No duty to sort of highlight the hazards or put slow markings on anything like that is however there is this general duty here not to ens snare people so if you put something as as a design that causes somebody to to do something wrong by Design almost so go back to
Those that jeel carriageway example um that’s where you in a problem because You’ you’ve kind of invited somebody into a trap there um if you want to see more about that go and watch brin’s video it’s really really good but just go and search um uh Brin Buck or Show Me
A Sign Brin gor versus cdale and I think that’s us Sally it is I’ll stop sharing wow thank you that’s yeah it’s really interesting I think um um uh yeah I I I was hit by a driver who I think and I think they weren’t very good there
Wasn’t very good warning of what was about to happen which probably contributed and I just thought the council will just say and and you give up don’t you and it’s interesting that that they pursued it that far you know it was obviously a very serious crash
But yeah um I spent years dealing with request for people to for can we put some signs up because signs make everything better usually they don’t usually signs are there to try and deal with an issue of design so yeah let’s get the designs right not give people traps yeah thank
You very much Mark uh and oh we got some hands up uh I will take those three questions I will take one more if anybody has one so think get in there quick and then and then we’ll finish up um can we make them quite short um H do
You want to go first yeah I FL I flagged up with Mark um we don’t have anything in the traffic signs manual for cycle ways in Glasgow we have zigzags on the level Crossings or the zebra Crossings on the cycle way down saki Hall Street
Who’s going to park on the cycle way or overtake on the cycle way I mean it’s ridiculous there seems to be no common standard to it and you can’t actually do a trro on them because you don’t have any formal description which you’d have with a
Tsrgd what do you think uh uh mini Ze Crossings over cycle tracks are C by chapter six of traffic signs manual you do not require zigzags uh most of the time there’s a couple of situations where you do and you don’t need a traffic order it’s a regulation 23
Crossing which is road traffic regulation act so uh probably doesn’t lead anyone into a trap having the zigzag so yeah it’s an interesting one thanks Mark this Mark rather than that Mark sorry sorry sorry Mark Mark sou yes Mark South um interesting the one about the
Steps track because I put a link in the chat about the one in Brighton that road.cc did a bit which was again mistaking a step a line for a step um and I also saw a driver tried to D drive down the cycle track as well at the same
Point um what I was wondering is about getting this across the Next Generation as you know we do the IH training and I think the question is how do you get this across to people who are starting off in the industry that you that don’t have your our experience your experience
Yeah I think it’s a really interesting question because there’s there’s two sides of this so so yeah rather flippantly yes scare them because we need to make sure people understand that through their design they could have these unforeseen circumstances but if the Goring case get cited they’re not
Liable so they’re not negligent so they exactly but it wasn’t a design issue but also it’s it’s worth pointing out to to people starting out that if you’re a designer um the likelihood of you being sued for your design is is so tiny it’s unbelievable because hopefully if you’re
A decent organization your designs go through checks and approvals um you’re far more likely as a local authority to be sued for trips slips and Falls so if you’re going to be Innovative you can be in Innovative write down what you’re doing why you’re doing it and you’ll be fine
Generally uh thanks Mark and uh Bob no can’t hear you’re mute Bob oh yeah that last point was really good actually but um uh the first thing I wanted to ask was in that Goring case did uh what who was on the wrong side of the road for a headon to have occurred
And isn’t that relevant yes she was so she so so she thought the bus was on her side of the road tried to swerve and at the last minute realized that the bus wasn’t because it’s the way the road went up and went around the crest that
Left hand Bend so she was yeah entirely at fault in terms of causing the crash yeah that that that’s kind of relevant the other about the step track thing so I’m a bit confused um is the ideal situation one where nobody on the main carriageway can
Get on to the cycle track uh including someone on a bicycle um and if you’re trying to prevent that uh isn’t it a white line kind of quite desirable and what about on the other side of of that white of that step what’s the situation there uh it’s give
Me two seconds and I’ve closed the thing down now sorry Bob um yeah right so what I would say is your cycle track should be designed in such a way that anybody wishing to join them as a cyclist can join them at the correct location which
Will be a junction or a proper you know it’s intuitive where you join yeah and they should be so good that once you’re on you don’t want to get off that’s kind of the starting point there um and yes from a step tracks point of view the aim
With it is to try and discourage drivers from coming into that space right um rather than cyclist wanted to get back into the the driving space the better solution there would be um with the step track is have your step track and if you can also have a buffer at the same level
Of the track just to get that that a visual Quee it’s um something else is going on um and it’s not just this Thin Line because those those curbs at night you could mistake that very easily for piece white paint but if you had a cycle Lane just painted then of course yeah
Cyclist can jump in and out of it all day but so drivers right okay that’s a good question right I got Matthew and Josh and I’m gonna take if you keep them quite short I’ll take both of those and there’s one in the chat and then we’re
Going to finish so H Matthew you first yeah um great presentation as ever um talking about leading pedestrians into into traps maybe and this relates to um an excellent presentation we had a while back about um improving Junctions and uh side roads in particular so in Darlington we’ve had some work done and
They’ve had an attempt at continuous footways um I jumped up and down because they kept the curb line they kept the double yellow line running round and they use a totally different surface color and block type so it’s it’s camouflaged and I’m just wondering about
Um we we’re about to have a second bit of work done in Darlington and I’m going to go back to the engineers to see how have you maintained the priority pedestrians have you led them into a trap because drivers are not complying I’m just wondering when it comes to
Designing um what looks like it might be a continuous pavement or not you know what should our Engineers be doing to make sure they’re not leading pedestrians into a trap and how can I point them at Great rather than adequate or or so the the the best thing to go
And read up is Robert weedman’s blog um about continuous treatments he’s he’s gone into lots of detail about exactly what you say so keeping the curves running around the corner oh looks like driving space keeping the yellow lines running around the corner oh it looks like driving space um so if you if
You’re going to do them properly and there’s still some debate going on what the correct level of um motor traffic going in and out that side road is but you really really want that design priority so your your main road yellow line St on the maid Road the curbs are
On the main road so use entrance curves um I would say use tactile paving takes a bit of care and attention to get in the right position some people say the tactile paving indicates that it’s again it’s yeah you’re entering driver space that’s fine the people that Rong tactile
Paving want to know that um if you want a really quick UK example go and have a look at the Ken Cycle Way in Coventry um I think it’s Barker buts Lane is a rough area um now their side road treatments are a bit shared space because of technical
Reasons uh construction reasons but in terms of design priority is what we’re talking about um they’re really good you can also go and look at the University of West of England’s research on side roads and design versus um marked priority that’s fascinating to read because again if you get it kind of
Right um it tells us that most of the time drivers realize that they’re guests I’ll jump on to Twitter and put some links in the um in the thing later thank you um and finally Josh you got a question yeah um just kind of back to
The the step cycle track Point um we had an interesting case in Cambridge where um proposal for um cycle um cycle tracks came forward um 2.2 meters wide Cambridge curbs and we kind of push back being like can we create can we create a full buffer and then we got in this Loop
Where we go right well the carriageways actually got to go up 500 mil to 6.5 because it’s a bus route so they they’ taken it down and then we were going well do we put a a kind of we can’t get the half meter buffer do you just go for
A cycle segregation curb 290 mil wide and then kind of you you’ve also lost 250 mil off the cycle track width so I I’m curious to just hear your thought on the kind of playoff between the lightly segregated at 2.2 and a fully segregated but with that
Potential curb Hazard um which I know has been an issue in like for drivers and also for Pinch cycle Lanes potentially yeah it’s a really good one and um I know some of the cycle tracks in Cambridge well and i’ yeah I’ve I’ve got maybe slightly controversial views
On the Cambridge curve but that’s for another day um what your cycle flows um what kind of flexibility and adaptability do you need for that cycle track are there any other issues so for example I know you’ve got the whole issue with the hospitals and emergency vehicles and needing to get
Drivers out the way so there’s that with step tracks but I would say a proper step tracks I they could Mount that carefully to let an ambulance through um probably in the situation you’re talking about i’ I’d imagine that not having the buffer practically is probably a bit
Better for the user because you can have overtaking going on um between cyclists and if you don’t have that then you can have people jumping into the road so it’s there’s tradeoffs with it and you’ve really got to think about those carefully I I do like to have a
Buffer um it’s it sends out a really good message the problem with the the the curb units you’re talking about is I have an upstand on the cyclist side again um the less likely speed mistaken for a white line because they’re wider you might put ones on whatever but
You’re still affecting that effective width with pedal strike and catching wheels and that kind of stuff yeah it becomes really just to come back it becomes really difficult on the drainage of some of our carriageways and and coming up with the solutions and
Yeah so we end up with do we do we punch through the curbs at points but yeah yeah tricky details absolutely I’m just gonna take this last question from the chat uh uh Sean says uh busy cyclops Junctions how do ordinary pedestrian cyclists and drivers learn how they meant to
Work I would say um and again experience varies with the design but generally speaking they’re pretty obvious how you use them um so if you’ve let let’s pick on Cambridge again because they want hison Road apart from the advanced stop lines which I have a different view on
But the actual layout of that is very intuitive so as a pedestrian you’re walking along you’ll see the mini zebra Crossing oh that’s where I need to across to pick up the traffic signals across the main Junction from a cyclist point of view again it’s it’s really
Obvious where you should go so as long as it’s done clearly if you can have different color materials for the road the cycle track and the footway that’s even better um use a crack tactile paven to guide the people that need it um I don’t think there’s a lot of teaching to
Do so from the driver’s point of view stop at the red light go at the green light it’s it’s as simple as that really so I think they’re quite intuitive but clean design is is the answer I think brilliant thank you very much thanks for another another very
Enlightening talk um and a big thank you again to Ben and Mike from ludology everybody’s got their homework for half term so just a reminder that we’re not here next week we’re taking a break for a week we’ll be back on the 27th of February um we’ll be hearing about
What’s going on in Glasgow uh so do join us for that and I hope you all have a great couple of weeks if anybody’s going away have a have a great time uh and we’ll see you then bye thanks everyone