Building Better: Side Street Crossings

Friday 12th January 2024
Building Better: Side Street Crossings
Hosted by Landor LINKS LIVE in partnership with Urban Movement.

https://www.landorlinks.uk/
https://www.transportxtra.com/
https://www.urbanmovement.co.uk/

#landorlinks #SideStreetCrossing #buildingbetter

What do Local Transport Note 1/20, the 2022 Highway Code update and innovative practice by some local authorities have in common? They all seek to make it safer and easier for people walking, wheeling and cycling to cross side street junctions.

Nevertheless, across the UK, these junctions remain locations where collisions and near misses are common and which thereby supress the potential for increased active travel. Efforts to address these problems are localised, several design issues remain contentious, and scheme costs are a challenge. Beneficial regulatory change is also painfully slow.

This webinar will bring together a panel of experienced practitioners who will clarify the key issues and obstacles at stake but also show, through reference to real-life examples, how innovative measures can make side street junctions safer and more convenient for active travel by taming motor traffic without affecting highway capacity.

Speakers
00:00 Chair: John Dales, Director, Urban Movement
15:53 Brian Deegan, Director of Inspections, Active Travel England
26:43 Bharti Gupta, Behavioural Researcher, TRL
35:34 Jonathan Flower, Senior Research Fellow & Transport Planner – Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England
43:09 Chris Proctor, Director and Lead Technical Consultant, London Borough of Waltham Forest
56:05 Robert Weetman, Technical Coordinator, Scotland, Living Streets
1:04:50 Daisy Narayanan, Head of Placemaking and Mobility, City of Edinburgh Council
1:13:30: Panel discussion

This webinar will cover:

The case for better side street junctions: problems and opportunities
The pros (and cons) of continuous crossings
Side street zebras and the need for regulatory change
The ‘Bellmouth Factor’
Towards common practice in design
Funding issues and opportunities
Case studies of groundbreaking approaches in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff

References used during the session.

https://livingstreets.org.uk/inclusivedesign
https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10851985
https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10037784
https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10592536
https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/847694

Well good morning everybody um I trust you can hear me my name is John Dales um as it says on the slide here and it’s my pleasure to um uh introduce this webinar today um thank you very much for joining um it arose from an idea that I pitched uh to

Well I didn’t really pitch I just said I think we need to talk about side streets to some colleagues from landoor um a few months ago uh when I was in centry and uh we didn’t know that there would be almost 1,200 signups uh for this um I

See that about well 600 and more of you are here right now which is quite extraordinary and um it shows how much interest there is in this topic looking at some of the questions and issues that some of you have raised beforehand in signing up for this um it’s clear that

There’s a wide variety of different perspectives on this or rather different interests and different things that uh delegates will be trying to find out and learn and I hope we can introduce uh you to a lot of uh or a direction to to see some of the answers in that interesting

Especially that some of the some of you who asked questions have specifically about continuous footway Crossings uh and continuous cycle Crossings and so forth Just to be clear that we’re talking about side street Crossings today um and um and that’s that will include so are we talking about

Continuous footw Crossings yes we are are we going to be talking about simple zebra Crossings yes we are but are we just going to be talking about some basic changes that we need at science strees oh yes we are because I think one of the key issues that I imagine lots of

You have signed up to listen to this for is just the fact that uh as we see in everyday life side three Crossings are um frankly not fit for purpose for specifically people walking Wheeling um and cycling across um my interest in this is because Urban movement the

Company that I help run um designs streets and we are very much focused on enabling uh people to walk wheel and cycle much more than they currently do and the uh in in insufficiency as it were of the the current infrastructure we’ve got is um is a great uh is is a

Major part of that um so what we’ve got today is a couple of things to say really about this is we’ve got a great panel we’ve got almost no time so we’ve got 90 minutes um I’ll be followed after a few introductory slides um by Brian Degan from active travel England Bary

Guper from TRL is going to talk about um some research on some simple crossings that were put in in Cardiff uh Jonathan flow uh from University of Western England is going to talk about some research they’ve done looking at um user what happens at um s Street Crossings

With a little bit more of an emphasis on cycling there as well as opposed to just the zebras Chris proor from wel and Forest is going to be talking about their experience with implementing um continuous Crossings and other uh Crossing uh changes in the last few

Years as part of their live work enjoy um uh won Forest mini Holland uh can um uh initiative Robert wheatman will be talking about some research that living streets have been doing uh in the last uh over the last couple of years looking at continuous footways and continuous

Crossings and Daisy um Naran and from Edinburgh will be just talking about her take um as uh uh somebody responsible in a big city like that for enabling people to walk wheel and cycle more than they currently do um there will be the minimum number of introductions uh

Between all of these we’re just going to cram it in as quickly as possible I will do a little bit of housekeeping before we get going um just to be clear there aren’t any direct user groups directly um represented in some of our speakers today but the perspective of user

Different walking leading cycling user groups will be up front and Central in some of the presentations including mine which will come first um and the second thing to say is that because there are so many people signed up today and because we’ve got so little time we’re

Going to be really rattling along we won’t have introductions other than the very briefest things between the different presentations each of those will be relatively short about 7 minutes we’re going for there won’t be time for clarification questions in between and um uh and what we’re hoping to do is

That we’ll have 30 minutes of Q&A at the end if we get through all these presentations as we as we hope we will in that sort of time and what I’m going to do I will then pitch specific questions to specific speakers um some of the questions that I’ve just

Mentioned have been already asked and I’ve had a looked at some of those um Down Below in your screen you’ll be able to see there’s a Q&A box there’s a chat box which is disabled for General participants today that’s just for us to be able to talk amongst ourselves while

We’re going on within the Q&A that’s where you can add your own questions and I encourage you to be them to be as piy as possible and if you want to address them to a specific speaker arising from what you’ve heard them say or what you

Think they might say uh then drop them into the Q&A we’ll be looking at those and I will P be pitching them to specific speakers at the end um just to be clear um there’s we won’t be handing the mic to any of you today we just

Don’t have the time or the ability to do that um uh the overall the purpose of today’s event is to inform you as much as possible about research um current research practice and thinking in this area to enable you to engage with that quite a few research reports will be

Referred to and there’ll be links to that and the information you’ll that that that will be provided afterwards there’s going to be recording of this whole thing um and so um you’ll be able to see that they land or hope to be able to to circulate that recording of everything at the by

The end of the day if not it’ll be shortly after that and that will include some of these links as well and just to say you saw a slide at the very beginning there’s going to be an in-person conference in London in March uh focusing on these and other related

Issues looking at Crossings and Junctions um and there’ll be a slide popping up um halfway through this presentation between uh a couple of others um just to allow you to get some more information about that and in fact I think there’s a QR code you can use in

And a discount code you can use for that as well if you’d like to do so so I’m going to start uh by just giving a little bit of an introduction to this and by doing that I will share a screen in the oldfashioned way um and uh here’s

Hoping that this goes reasonably well I reckon you can see this um and I’m hoping you can um um and I just want to talk through as an introductory thing my take on essentially what I was talking about back in the day um thanks to those thumbs up um uh uh with

Colleagues about the fact that we we have a problem with s Street Junctions in fact I think it’s fair to say we have problems with sze three Junctions um and this is my sort of assessment of of what some of those generic problems are and what I call the bellmouth factor which

Is basically where you’ve got a relatively narrow side streak and suddenly it spays to twice sometimes three times its width when it comes to the crossing point and that means that desine Crossing distances are necessarily large it also means that because of the generous turn radi

Drivers can turn in and out much faster than the otherwise could or should and the the the consequence of both of those factors put together is that people crossing whether they’re walking Wheeling or cycling are exposed to a greater than necessary danger for longer than necessary it’s a real classic

Double whammy you’re in the carriageway for longer and vehicles can go faster uh through that space where you are in addition to that we have a real problem in terms of level access and whether that’s through raised tables or properly formed drop curves that’s routinely absent um tactile signals are also

Routinely absent so if you’re are blind or partially cited there’s just no indication before you get there um uh that that there is a Crossing to be navigated this includes where there are where there is level access as well which makes it a little bit more tricky obviously because there isn’t even a

Curve um uh upstand that you can that you can find and I will say as well that despite recent and if you look at them in detail um rules H2 and and Rule 170 they are slightly confusing as to exactly how does this work out theoretically now if you read the new

Highway code and of course the vast majority of drivers have not um you’re s expected to yield to people crossing or waiting to cross um but then actually 170 still sort of implies no actually just when they’ve started to cross so even those changes if anyone’s read them

Are relatively confusing and so in summary we’ve got a situation where the vast majority of side street Junctions in this country do not prioritize the movement of people walking Wheeling or cycling and and I suppose I would just add that the problems are so common that they’re hidden in plain sight um and

Just by way of illustration of that I happen to be in Edinburgh for New Year’s this year and on New Year’s morning I CU I do this and it wasn’t just to clear my head it was a lovely day actually I just took a little walk around literally a

Mile and a half around where I was staying in Edinburgh and um and I’m just going to see what I saw and I’ll Chase through these as quickly as possible just to give an illustration of some of the bad but also some of the good and Daisy just

To be clear about this I just happened to be in Edinburgh um I could have taken a and and I have done frankly because I am that sad taking a similar range of photographs in virtually any City I’ve been to so here’s one in a really um uh

Quiet deadend uh Housing state where I was saying a massive Bell mouth for a tiny little Junction where only three cars go um uh there’s there are drops off the desire line um and no tactile paving that goes with that or at all it’s just unnecessarily wide and and and

A problematic here’s another one uh just a little bit further up before I get out the Housing State a similarly wide Junction with drops actually on the desire line but if you look in detail the upstand there on the drop is um is too great uh that’s you know couple of

Couple of 20 mil or so like that which can be a real problem for people with rollators and small wheeled Wheelchairs and that kind of thing as well just poorly formed stuff um just as we’re leaving that estate I I like this one here coming onto the main road here and

These hash markings are just showing exactly what we could do which is basically look that that Junction is far too widely sped uh let’s tighten it up now that’s a cheap way of doing but of course Vehicles can overrun those hatch markings and really what we need to do

Is to make that physical um just moving along slightly there was again another SCI Junction that same made road which is so wide they’ve split it in half which is okay you can do it in two parts but that means you’ve got two sets of drop Crossings now and as you can see

It’s rather pinched and confused and the the the drop Crossings aren’t terribly well formed and the radi still fairly generous moving along there was just this very small um side street Junction there because you can see you can’t go across it in a in a desire line you have

To go off your desire line quite a long distance to cross it and on one side as you can see top right really really awkward and and you know badly pitched uh tactile paving at the Crossing there and again the upstand is too great and the junction Crossing is too wide here

Again further on we’ve got another Junction where the hatching uh is shows where actually the curve line should now be uh for that again very quiet side street Crossing here’s one I thought was quite interesting which is just basically domestic driveway and we have

That here and as I think you can see if you uh are using Wheels if you’re in a wheelchair you simply can’t proceed across that because the upstand on one side is is really quite substantial and poorly formed in that and that’s just a domestic driveway and moving along slightly we

Have another one which is basically uh just a fairly standard Crossing but you know too standard it’s too wide certainly the radius on one side is far too big there are no Crossing points formed at all there no tactile paving or anything I keep going down here now this

Is much better it’s a really kind of awkward con Junction as you can possibly make out but the council has come along relatively recently and built it out so this is like the build outs you can see here are where they might have been hatching in the past and that means as

You can see those people crossing there’s far less um distance to cross and uh the the um the drop curbs are properly formed uh and on the desire line nice work uh further on down just an ordinary side street Junction here where again there’s no drops at all and

And no tactile paving which is probably understandable if there no drops another Junction much bigger one um in side street there and you can see that both of the corners there had been substantial build outs to make it easier with a Central Crossing uh Island where

You don’t have to go up and down with which helps as well um uh which is good so you can go through that again way way better than it used to be uh opposite that uh there’s a little Junction here where they’ve got some little build outs

Which means the um the radi were never that tight but they’re built out and actually that’s even less of distance to cross um and drop curves there with tactile paving which is better Al notice also the the stop signs which they seem to like quite a lot in in Glasgow you

Might expect in most places that would just be give way um further down the way you’ve got a junction here again where there’s been a substantial buildout uh which is great to tighten up but on one side not on the other interestingly enough as you can see top

Right there which means you again you’ve got an awkwardly formed and necessarily um crossing a drop Crossing on a y radius um here’s another one I’m just showing this is a very very small uh Junction that’s just to a small a couple of garages off to the right there and

This is one of the generic problems we have if we’re going to drop curbs is that it’s you know you’ll see this time and time and time and time again it’s it’s it’s it’s hard if you’re doing it cheaply to get the the drainage right and this kind of experience at the

Bottom of rock curbs is is is far too common um uh I will I think this is probably my last one and this is my favorite in the way which is another big wide spay Junction uh we’re back on the main road I was crossing originally and

It’s just this big um a huge area that has been claimed and this is I suppose your halfway house between hatching it and actually building it out properly is to hatch it and then put some uh ons there so that vehicles have to track in the appropriate way I rather like that

It shows I suppose just another example of the kind of things we’re dealing with that’s me really for the moment that’s just an introduction to the kind of problems we have and some of the solutions that edra have put in um um just a quick look at that that’s what it

Used to be uh that same Junction and that’s what it is now uh not exactly pretty uh but uh but effective um in in the way that it works and you’ll see also it enables cyclists on that site track as well to people on Cycles to to

Get across much more safely than they otherwise would have done I’m going to um drop my screen now and um oh it’s been dropped for me and uh all I it saves me to deal I’m going to introduce my my friend former colleague and and our head of inspections um active travel England

Brian even and I’ll get out of your way Brian thanks John um yeah I’ll jump in on on side street Crossings or we move to the next slide because I’ll I’ll cck in quickly really about priority Junctions as uh the engineers call them so you already mentioned Highway code

Rule 170 which is does say the drivers the instructions you have to give way to pedestrians Crossing or waiting to cross so to an extent that’s uh the M drop job done why aren’t people doing it um the the general rule then is that pedestrians do have priority the the

Interesting side of it is then we don’t have to mark the general rule and this think this is where some of the ambiguity comes in um whereas like uh there’s no marking we can do to tell drivers that pedestrians have priority because it’s the general rule so another

Example would be like there’s no sign we can put up telling cyclist not to ride on the football way because the general rule is you can’t ride on the footway so the priorities established in the highway code and and here’s the picture of it and I thought I’d uh I’d start

With this from the highway code was like does it feel like The Pedestrian has priority there I think if we put ourselves into the picture of that lady crossing it’s uh it’s it’s quite a nervous place to be I certainly if I was walking with my children would not just

Be staring ahead going it’s okay I can do this I’d be really worried about that TR I’d be worried about their approach speed and I’d be really worried and I’d probably get a little bit of a jog on to get across there so the the real Crooks

Of the matter is that priorities really not being established in the minds of drivers even though from a government point of view and I’m representing the government here we made it fairly clear I think in the guidance that they do have it but do we need to do more to let

Drivers know hey there’s this priority but we would in fact be breaking our general rule rule about signage okay okay let’s move on to the next picture we’ll try and unpack it a little bit further and so yeah this is kind of like a the way people are crossing side roads

And uh I’m going to talk a little bit about the active traveling then tools this is like a successful method that I’ve employed myself headphones on just go for it um like our commissioner Chris bourman used to talk about that crossing a side street shouldn’t require bravery

And to an extent we’ve created a situation where it does now we might have that legal priority but in reality the only way you’re really getting across town is to head down and go for it which is good if you’re bold uh if you’re the kind of Richard asro style

Walker all good but for people actually care about their lives and their children it can be quite an intimidating place to do and I think the whole essence of today is to try and unpack some ways of resolving it um in the ACT travel England tools which are shortly

To be published and we’ve been using for the last couple of years with local authorities uh well this is the number number one issue for us it’s right at the top of the checklist of safety issues how many vehicles are turning across the path of pedestrians or

Cyclists going across side roads I put the figures there which we think this is a major problem that greater than 2,500 vehicles per day we’re probably expecting fairly regular collisions and sadly fatalities what can we do to avoid that can we treat it so that that priority is more clearly established I’m

Going to show some methods of doing that so uh we really can’t expect people to have to go around like this what can we do to uh make it better let’s have a look at the next slide so like uh LTM 1220 like the government guidance for

Cycling that came out a couple years ago now has a whole bunch of side street arrangements and uh and it’s quite good it’s got like the kind of race table the the setback with priority zebras those ones on the top the the Side Road entry treatment with like in line or setback

Cycling ones or the continuous footways at the bottom so we put the those options there is a missing top right and I’ll I’ll talk about that and show some examples that I think we have got examples of the inline parallel Crossing but this is kind of like a when we’re

Checking at at active travel England and schemes CR across our desk we’re kind of expecting them to conform to to one of these but are they all right and there’s certainly a lot of detail missing in these drawings which are really like a schematic approach of you can do this

This this and this can you try one of them but there are many factors that come in to keep Bell M wide and to stop people raising things and the cost and the expense and the maintenance and the drainage all these other factors have to takeen in hand let’s look at the next

Slide so what we’re doing at the moment is kind of deciding um about side roads zeas and there’s going to be people talking a little bit more about that I’ll do this as a bit of an intro for for the transport research laboratory it’s certainly something that we’re

Really interested in government as we think it it could be a solution that fits in a lot of places and really this slide’s about saying it which I always say for anybody that talk to me is like context is everything there’s no one solution to this there’ll be many

Different solutions that work in different contexts I’ve Had It Go for londoners will Reon recognize the street types but it’s just looking at that kind of movement and place access that something you do on arterial Road should obviously be different to something you do on like a a city place where there

Aren’t as many cars and there’s lots more activities and people moving everywhere and you you’d probably want to make it a very clear priority there whereas like a will priority ever be given to someone Crossing an arterial Road and what can do to actually make that happen do we actually need to look

At more like a signal options so it’s uh it’s my classic like everybody’s right and everybody’s wrong giv the context so what I’ve what I’ve attempted to do here is just show a little bit of a hierarchy of what Crossings would provide the highest level of service for people

Walking and cycling in these different contexts it’s also like a more standard approaches as as well um so yeah you can see there that we’ve got like inline parallel Crossings The Continuous footways coming on those kind of city streets but they are usable across a few

More areas but I do um hope everybody watching this will think okay continuous footways we’re convinced Side Road Z we’re convinced will pressure the government but also think well where would he work where wouldn’t he work and the stage right in government at the

Moment is to kind of decide if we do do these things where do they fit in the crossing hierarchy are we using the right type of Crossings for the right context that’s a check that active travel England do certainly we’re looking at any kind of zebra Crossing

And it’s over 8,000 Vehicles a day we’re probably thinking it’s very unlikely that priority will be given in that situation we might go a little bit strong we might have to do signal options or we might have to raise things and tighten it and really make drivers

Aware that this is a place where they do need to yield priority now the general rues still there but we have to apply it and make people aware of it in different contexts in different ways and that’s really what this slide’s about and yeah that big circles around well actually

The side Ro zebra that the rest of the world uses this kind of simple zebra as John referred to it is quite applicable in a lot more scenarios than the other options that we have and it’s also one of the cheapest if not the cheapest option that we could do in there which

Is always good in a strained economy where we want to make changes quickly to get more people uh walking Wheeling cycling and particular that’s the whole aim of active England so we’ve got a cheap solution that we can roll out on mass then uh we’re definitely open to

That and we are looking at that in the moment and I’ll come back to that as well let’s move on to the next slide yeah so uh I’ve come back to it right now Side Road zers I’ve talked a little bit about like the stage we at

Like I said is that we’re thinking where do these fit in the hierarchy what’s the exact spec and active traveling that we’ve been supporting the Welsh government who are a little bit further ahead than us because they’re they’re into a kind of a regulation s at the

Moment we’re we’re waiting to update the next round of the traffic signs regulations and general directions document the tsrgd as we all call it we can’t really put any new marking or use a prescribed marking in a different way until that documents come out we are for those that

Have been keeping uh keeping CL you about 10 years overdue an update of the last one or sometimes we do uh uh do temporary fixes during that period so we are due that to be updated and when that does updated we very much want to put some different markings and we’re really

Excited about the research that great Manchester have done and that that the Welsh government have done you’ll hear more about that in a moment it does seem to be a fairly compelling case to use this we still have that conflict in our minds at the government that actually

The general rule is that pedestrians have priority why aren’t people doing is the more of a behavior Change option but I think we’ve uh all rested on the fact that these things do seem to be cementing that in driver’s mind but we do always have to think well will

Drivers just think that pedestrians have only got priority of this markings here what happens if it’s not there does that weaken the general rule these are the kind of questions that we have to face as uh as legislators and Regulators at government but uh just point this one

Out this is a from greater Manchester visualization I could have shown many many real ones that people have done of this kind of Li to style but it was the visualization that we done in great Manchester and I got them to do it on my street in the in Mosside and uh just

It’s a different conference but we did have to photoshop all the vehicles off the uh off the footway so we could actually show that people could want there but there’s one for another topic let’s move on to the next slide okay so um could just wrap that

Would be great oh yeah I’ve only got like a couple of pictures I’ll do them quickly sorry John John knows I famous to go on a little bit so just a few examples of best practice and just to illustrate some of the the different concepts here’s an inline parallel

Crossing that missing top right from LTM 120 people have done it John will know this one very well little bit of Greening uh protection and priority obvious priority for people walking and cycling uh very much active traveling we think this is best practice let’s do the

Last one for a big finale just to show a really murky day I thought I’d end on a rainy day in Romford by showing a continuous footway next to a cycle track as well as a little bit of an example and hopefully as an appara for the uh the following conversation that’s me

Done John thanks lovely thank you very much Brian um yes I’m no one to talk in terms of taking longer than I should with think but without further Ado um partly um including by the uh simple zebras research let’s hear what bti has got to say from her research looking at the

Work that Cardiff have done thanks bti hi um so uh thanks John I’ll be talking about uh the study TRL did last year on the impact of uh simple zra Crossings on road user behavior and perceptions and Cardiff um next slide please so just a little bit of

Background about the project uh the W Welsh government and transport for whales were delivering a new default uh speed limit of 20 m per hour on restricted roads in Wales and as part of that roll out um the Welsh government commission tal to take a trial of the

Simple uh zra Crossings on side roads in Cardiff and Main they wanted to understand was the impact of these Crossings on road user Behavior Uh safety and Associated user perception um next slide please so there’s a couple of differences as uh Brian actually showed just now what’s a difference between a simple zebra

Crossing and traditional zebra Crossing um as you can see they both have the traditional black and white stripes across the road and the respective giveway lines around it however unlike the traditional zebra Crossing that has a minimum requirement of at least two zigzag lines um that creates a minimum

Setback distance of about 4.8 M the simple zra Crossing is placed at the right at the M mouth of the of the junction and ideally where there’s a dropped curb to stay within the desired walking line of a pedestrian and it also does not have the zigzag markings

Leading up to the crossing and there novicia vac so we used this for the trial um and the study was approached in two parts one was the impact study where we uh looked at before uh we did a before and after monitoring of the site using data captured by op object detection

Technology and then we also approached Road users using service to capture their feelings and attitudes towards the Zim uh symbol zra Crossing after it was installed next slide please so one of the key findings from the impact study was that more pedestrians uh chose to take the direct

Route across the mouth of the junction with the simple zebra markings H in place than they had previously done so and on the next slide you will see that before the simple zebra Crossing was implemented there was a small portion of pedestrians that cross the road after the vehicle and the data

Showed that after the implementation of the zle uh zebra Crossings there was a significant reduction in the number of pedestrians who gave uh way to vehicles with um biggest reduction at one of the sites the bishop site uh which was also the busiest of the three sites that were

Being Tri suggesting that there could be value in adding simple zebra Crossings at uh busy Junctions um yeah next slide please so on this we look at the impact of um the simple zebra Crossings on the distance between a vehicle and a pedestrian so it would be expected that a pedestrian’s uh

Perception of safety would be affected by the proximity of vehicle there uh proximity from the vehicle that uh and their themselves when they’re Crossing and so the further way a vehicle is the safer pedestrian would feel about Crossing at this Crossing and if you look at the dark gray bars on this chart

That shows that the number of pedestrians who cleared the crossing area before the vehicle reached uh that point uh was reduced um and that uh sorry the number of pestan who cleared the crossing increased after the zebra Crossing was installed and um yeah this uh has implications for

Users perception of safety as well and then if you look at the next slide you look at the vehicle speed as it approached the the crossing and the charts are basically presenting the distribution of speed at all three sites before and after the implementation so you’ll see that there’s a clear shift uh

In the distribution of uh speeds towards lower speeds meaning that Vehicles were generally approaching the crossing at lower speeds after the implementation um of the simple Crossing again this has implications for users perceptions of their safety so if you go to the next slide this is just a

Summary of um all the other uh parameters that we looked at overall the research uh conducted in this triail provide PR strong uh evidence that the symbol zebra Crossing achieved its objective and increasing pedestrian priority and the The observed reduction in speed vehicle uh vehicle speed the proximity between the the vehicle and

The Pedestrian at the Crossing suggest that there’s some safety benefits and um none of of the observations that uh we looked at also indicated any additional risk to Road user uh Road users safety um next slide please and looking at the survey findings from the user perception study

The majority of both pedestrians and drivers we approached reported that uh pedestrians have priority using the crossing and that motor vehicles and cyclist must give way to pedestrians using the trial Crossing so and and when we spoke to the disability Group they also agreed uh the same thing about the

Priority but they did not feel confident that drivers would actually could actually be relied upon to give way to pedestrian especially when the junction is so close uh when the crossing is so close to the junction so majority of the reasons for feeling safe were due to the

Presence of a Crossing in the first place and reasons for feeling unsafe were that they didn’t really trust other Road users to give them we and as mentioned earlier that because it’s so close to the junction it’s something that’s new and during the trial it also happened that uh there were vehicles

That were obstructing the view of The Pedestrian um at the curb so that was another reason for the concerns um and drivers uh when we ask drivers if they felt more or less safe with or without the Crossing in place uh it had little difference on how

Drivers feel um because of that and finally blind or partially cited Road users prefer to cross at a point away from the junction um because just simply because of how they navigate um the road um next slide please so their user survey raised some concerns that could be addressed through

Communication and education campaigns about the new markings uh and changes in the recent Highway code that g greater priority uh to pedestrians at side roads and specifically considerations need to be given to the concerns raised by people with disabilities spe especially to ensure that the uh Side Road

Crossings are free from obstructions and parked vehicles that Crossings are only marked between parallel curbs to this is specifically to allow visually impa users to know where the start point is and where the end point is and then also provide alternative Crossing available away from the junction um to allow them

To for those who do not prefer to cross at the junction and lastly uh while the none of the observation indicated increased risk to Road users uh this was only study was this study was only done for a two we period uh and longer term monitoring

Could be done um for future trial Tri uh as well as a few other parameters that that were raised as concerns basically because the the trial was done in daytime so implications of the trial uh of the simple zebra Crossings on road user perception in the dark meets and

Also um observing the impact that simple Crossings have on parking Behavior at the curbs nearby um that is me thanks and I’ll hand back you John many thanks bti um and from one research project uh to another um let’s hear from Jonathan flower at uh from the University of the west of

England thank you John um I I’m going to present briefly this morning on um findings from two recent studies um the first was funded by transport Scotland and that looked specifically at design priority Crossings and the second was funded by the road safety trust and that was

Funded um that was looking at Mar priority Crossings and I work for the center of transport and and society and we studied the effect of enhancing priority for people crossing side roads um on foot or cycle traffic um even um even more important I think you agree following the um January 2022 Highway

Code changes that have been mentioned already on this next slide um it’s something that Brian’s already showed um from ltn 120 the diagram from LTM to20 and Junctions as you can see here may be enhanced by Design improvements um marked here as design priority also known as continuous footways or

Continuous Crossings or as you see at the top um by mode Road markings um marked here as Mar priority now LTM 120 suggests that the choice between Mark priority and design priority depends on context and also on budget um design priority as um Brian’s already said um has typically been deployed with no

Setback of footway or cycle track whereas Mark priority or parallel Crossings with no setback are not currently possible or not currently permitted we’ve seen that picture from um Brian that um there are there are at least there is at least one example of but they’re not currently permitted

Because of the regulation um for a minimum of two zigzags each side of the crossing hence the no box at the top right hand corner on the next side I’ve put pictures of three Junctions and um we research yielding Behavior at conventional Side Road Junctions compared with design priority Junctions

And Mark priority Junctions and yielding behavior of people crossing the Side Road roads um in 13,42 interactions were coded so we looked at Junctions right across the um the UK um and we coded those interactions at side roads as no yield voluntary yield or Force yield and

Nearly half of that’s 46% of the interactions with turning vehicles for people crossing at conventional side roads Junctions um in our observations were voluntary yields um where the person Crossing defers to a a turning driver but when we look at enhanced Junctions they virtually eliminate voluntary yields and create um High

Proportions of priority for people crossing so looking at the bottom left hand corner there um the overall no yield rate is 88% at marked priority with the zebra bottom right it’s 90% at design priority um Crossings um and you can see in the middle there the value of

The zebra at Mar priority Junctions is demonstrated by a lower no yield rate of 65% when you come to Mark priority without a zebra on the next side considering safety um and we used the proportion of force yields by people crossing as a proxy for risk um so risk to people

Crossing side roads as vehicles are turning in or out appears to be lowest um at design priority and highest at mark priority without zebras however it’s worth bearing in mind that statistical modeling that we undertook shows that these proportions are influenced by both the crossing um flow

And the Turning Flows In and Out Of The Junction so on the next slide um just considering the question to to set back or or not to set back that’s the question um and design priority Junctions like the one you see on the left with no setback have a high

Proportion of occasions when the person Crossing doesn’t yield um in our study it was 91% and this is lower um with partial setback at 77% Force yields um are low with no setback at 8% and higher with partial setback at 19% moving on to Mark priority Junctions with a parallel Crossing and with

Partial setback like the one on the the right these have a high proportion of occasions when the person Crossing doesn’t yield at 92% and this is higher than for four setback which is 82% um and there were very few voluntary yields um there there were more Force

Yields with full setback at 18% and partial setback at 8% and these proportions indicate a tendency for Crossings with less setback to offer greater priority for people crossing the side roads this comes with a a caveat we we did undertake statistical modeling I’m not going to go

Into the details now if you want to know you can look at the the the report um and the statistical modeling suggests that there is no difference in prop propensity for drivers to force fields based on level of setback so what did we conclude on the next slide you can see

That the findings and demonstrate the value of both design um design priority and Mark priority Junctions especially parallel Crossings with the zebra in reinforcing priority for people crossing a side road um and greater priority with less setback now but but before I um I conclude I just want to do one sort of

Post scriptum um and on the last slide here um you can see a simple zebra and this is in Melbourne in in Australia um and in this city they’ve been installing simple zebras like like those these um you can see here prioritized locations across the city um

To encourage or to enable walking and improve safety and unlike the UK this is um currently permitted under um Victoria state state regulation however um there is a risk that they can lead people to believe that as sites where they’re not installed um drivers don’t have have to

Give way to a pedestrian something that um Brian alluded to um who is a pedestrian that’s crossing the street into which a driver is turning and we undertook some um research with the University of Melbourne and found that the risk of this unintended consequence um is actually very very real for the

Study findings so I I I would end by saying that this is something that demands more research and has implication for both our findings um and the research carried out by TRL um in Manchester and Cardiff so thanks very much and these references here are ones

I think will be shared with you later they will indeed thanks very much Jonathan um and just here’s a word from our sponsors um so uh as I mentioned at the beginning and as you might have seen as you coming in uh from the holding slide there’s a conference um in London

In March which um deals with which will look in more detail at some of these issues and I dare say there’ll be some familiar faces at that and as well um if you’re interested in that um I tried the QR code earlier it did work and there’s

Even a I see oh yeah a discount code as well so anyway grab that I’m sure that’ll be provided in uh in future information as well if you wave your camera at that in the final few seconds it’s up you can do that um but we do

Need to be moving on now and next up uh with a practitioner perspective moving from research to that we’ve got Chris Proctor from blondon b w from forest and because they’ve done a lot of work uh in this field so um Chris thank you very much thanks John um firstly apologies

For the Hat we are I’m trying to trying to save on on Heating and it’s a bar me 15 degrees in here um so I’m hoping everyone can see so very briefly um my name is Chris proter and for quite a while now I’ve been providing a lot of

Support to Wolf and Forest as part of their New Holland program and um ongoing projects that try to M keep keep applying some of those principles um my presentation is really a Whistle Stop tour of what has been done in WN Forest it doesn’t go too much into the the why

And the challenges we’re trying to address I think John you captured that at the beginning um so we will crack through so w Forest bit of background context uh first two or three were introduced on H Street for those that know wolf and Forest which is a main

North south Cor Corridor in the center of the bough in late 2014 um they were preceded by ones that John team worked on and delivered in Lamberth prior to that but as far as I’m aware and we aware there aren’t too many and prior examples um in the UK so

Limited evidence and examples to draw upon um so some of the principles largely came from Holland um I believe there’s a wider view that it’s it’s Northern Western Europe but I was been informed the other day that it’s mainly from Holland so uh in terms of how we’ve kind of

Tried to embed it into wolf and Forest uh kind of policy and and principles it was integrated into the Min Holland design guide and I’m hoping that you um well I’m not expecting everyone to be able to read the small text but this is a a screen grab from um the design guide

Which tries to kind of you know embed it in that policy so it’s clear and and you know for everyone to to appreciate um the intention really is to obviously provide priority continu of provision for people walking and cycling at Side Road Junctions um John talked about and

Brian the various rules and regulations within the highway code um trying to strengthen and reinforce those um and I know there’s a bit of a question mark about whether the change in 22 um did strengthen I think so but maybe there’s that’s a topic of debate um it’s really

Important to know that in terms of continuous footways one first have 99% of the time employed them as part of a wider package of measures so integrated into a wider treatment if you will so that’s either looking at kind of segregated cycling walking infrastructure on the on the main roads

Or as part of kind of area based treatments looking at traffic reduction schemes or low traffic neighborhoods as the current pance is so as of today there’s over 200 in Wolf and Forest um doted around mainly in the South and center of the B with a

A limited number um in in the North uh there’s a few different images of them obviously you know kind of trying to depict the different scenarios and I think the next slide kind of conveys the the the variations that we do have in the v um there’s been a lot of trialing

And testing design tweaks trying to try slightly different layouts and formats I’m not quite sure we’ve got to the point where we have the exact preferred one um and obviously every Junction is different so there’s always needs to be um some flexibility in approach so in terms of design um you know the

Variations are there kind of you know whether you do or don’t have a a cycle track uh running along the kind of Main Road uh whether the main road itself is raised locally um obviously that then turn you know affects whether or not you can achieve vertical deflection into the

Side road um which obviously is you know some people would say is a key element and certainly part of the Dutch principles is is slowing that those tail movements in and out as far as possible um and of course of course with all schemes we always try to reflect local

Kind of characteristics public realm and other factors and that obviously leads to some decisions maybe around materiality layout um and so if you’ve got kind of urban designers involved and those public realm Specialists who want to kind of try and bring that local characteristic into design um whilst we

Do have quite a lot of variation we do try to or have try to stick to some key principles so that’s generally removing all the kind of features that you would typically associate with a kind Road Junction so that’s your curbs um you know Street Furniture as much practical

Road markings and you know obviously the big one is obviously the kind of tactile paving and that’s a huge um area of debate obviously in terms of the impact that may may have on on certain users um generally the principle is to try and reduce the side road kind of width down

As far as possible so over the years generally we’ve kind of got down to about 5 5 and 1 half MERS for most two-way roads um obviously less for oneway way roads um or oneway roads where trying to combinate two-way cycling um somewhere in the middle um

Try to kind of reinforce that width restriction through Street Furniture particularly green infrastructure if we can if they SC to that utility so the photo here is a quite good example of of trying to reduce that kind of Side Road width through through green infrastructure which has obviously added

Benefits and then kind of coming up these kind of imaginary radi of 1 meters I’ve seen a lot of comments in the in the Q&A about Refuge access and large vehicle that exist but um I think the view w Forest has been to really try and reduce those kind of effective radi to

Really slow movements in and out and kind of accept that may mean certain bigger vehicles have to make movements that overlap into the main road carriageway Etc and yes on the speed reduction element um where we can not always possible for you know engineering constraints or because you may have

Raise sections on the main carriageway vertical deflection wherever possible some of the key concerns that came up tickly during the first few few years as as the first numbers were were introduced in the B um you know the impact on people with Visual and cognitive difficulties um we had quite a

Lot of correspondence from parents um with children walking to school um obviously been taught traditional ways of how to navigate using those kind of common features that have always been there and and you know the age-old kind of educational approach um so and obviously the continuous footway

Treatment kind of takes those away and so it was concern over you know safety for for younger members of society uh at certain locations concerns around congestion lay from a driver perspective so uh two vehicles not being able to kind of pass in and out um due

To No No Lack of visual Clues around Road positioning um did find that tend to be on locations where we had high residual flows as I said most of the um conways that been installed have been as part of low traffic neighborhoods or other treatments that have sought to

Reduce traffic but uh there are small number on roads where was still reasonably High residual volumes and they’re the ones typically where the the issues have Arisen around um vehicle behavior and being able to pass one another um also some concerns about visibility for drivers because of the

Setback giveway so um the images I previous showed weren’t maybe the best ones to convey this but most of the continuous footways have you can just see in the bottom left hand corner here um giveaways that are know if you’re exiting the Side Road that’s where the driver should try and yield

Um obviously to then move cautiously and slowly across the kind of continuous footway area before exitting on the main road um obviously in a lot of London streets you you know don’t you quite often don’t have Bill n set very far back and so those giveaways people have

Been raising concerns that you can’t necessarily see um the main road very clearly when you when you’re quite far set back um so yeah obviously quite a few concerns I believe or remember in in the first few years but I would say that over time has more been rolled out in

The bar the number of concerns that I’ve certainly seen and heard of have reduced substantially and very he very few that’s directly from wolin forest residents I I would say certainly that doesn’t um I wouldn’t suggest that means that they don’t exist um we have done some monitoring

Orbe it not for quite a long time um it’s been hyperlocal largely and uh yeah I would say generally quite limited we we have kept on talking about wanting to do more and and there’s always quite of other priorities kind of getting the way um of these things and and gladly there

Are some much more robust kind of studies and work being done that colleagues on on this presentation have talked through and we’ll talk through so um be obviously looking to kind of review those and see how we can apply them um these are the studs we have done

So this was one that was done actually by tfl with us looking at two locations um in H Street so not the section that was on my very first side this is the Northern end which uh was delivered in 2016 20 2016 um so yeah so this was a

Bit of work just looking at before and after um bit of conflict interaction analysis um and just kind of some kind of key points from that that uh kind of drivers assuming priority or or the number of drivers giving away did appear to go up um having you know put in these

Continuous footways obviously maybe not as much as would have liked um but obviously these were very early days so some of the first that were installed in the B um and then obviously this particular location there were some movements more than other in terms of the vehicle movements in and out where

Driver priority changed more significantly or sorry pedestrian priority changed more significantly I think with this one it was the left turn in and the left turn out were ones where we didn’t see as much change whereas the right turn in and out the The Pedestrian saw a lot more priority after after the

Changes um this is another one so this was actually done by some Consultants the W for use product Center this is one of the Junctions where we had quite High residual flow and there was lots of complaints here about Vehicles not being able to kind of pass one another um and

That’s because there was quite quite a few occasions where you’d have vehicles trying to exit as well as others trying to to get in so we looked on this in two front so again we tried to look at The Pedestrian vehicle interaction angle um as well as looking at more those kind of

Operational concerns about Vehicles pass through another um and whether the vehicles able to mount the curb Etc so appreciate you may not necessarily be able to kind of see all of these numbers in in the presentation but I believe there’ll be aailable again this one showed from a pedestrian priority

Perspective that um you know certainly pedestrians seem to get more priority uh but then the actual movements that they got more priority on were actually different to the ones on host Street which is quite interesting it did also highlight that there were some issues around Vehicles being able to kind of

Get in and out and as a result of this some small adjustments were made to to the junction just to try and relieve that a little bit uh the final bit is really around um some Collision based moning we did as part of our wide w v

For review which was the first kind of major scheme that was delivered on in Min Holland um it quite limited it was trying to look at collisions before and after the scheme so the post data was only 11 months where clearly we would always look for three years if not more

Um it did indicate that there had been a reduction or significant reduction in collisions involving pedestrians and Cycles at Junctions where C’s footways were introduced but I would um say that there’s no way that you could really try and isolate that down to the continuous footwe treatment itself and there’s

Obviously a huge range of factors would affect that so um hopefully you know a collision based assessment is something we can look at moving forward so for us oh for Wolf and Forest next steps is um and I said colleagues coming up we’ll talk more about this um obviously

There’s some great researchers just come out from living streets so we’ll be looking to digest that and see how we can take the findings of that and um look at maybe an internal design review and looking at our internal guidance and specification W fromed and you know I’d

Like to see a for do some more local research and monitoring of our own infrastructure as well so I will leave it there so and get rid of this many thanks Chris thanks a lot for that and especially for teeing up Robert wheatman from living streets who um is just going

To talk to us doesn’t have any slides well you might have one thanks very much Robert uh thanks John um so yes um uh good morning everyone um I’m not sharing slides I do have one image I’ll share later on I as as as Chris has just said I’ve

Spent the last two and a half and years leading a living Street study of continuous footways at side roads and also of bus stops where there’s a cycle track and we’ve been investigating questions about how inclusive those arrangements are but I’ll Focus today on some of what we’ve learned from The

Continuous footway work and for anyone who’s not sure what I mean when I talk about a continuous footway stick with me because I’ll say a little bit more about that in a moment um I could only scratch the surface of what’s in the report so I’m going to work towards describing one

Central conclusion from the research that I think really matters for today but just briefly to get started I need to mention three introductory background points firstly it was clear from the work that in Britain there is no consistent widespread agreement around what a continuous footway is and is not

And there are contrasting and cont ictory ideas and guidance documents and a very wide range of different designs actually on the streets which are all being called continuous footways um we could see that what that means is that everyone ends up talking at Cross purposes and even even some

Seemingly obvious things aren’t well established for example many of the designs we studied which were described as continuous footways didn’t unambiguously continue the footway um you know the pavement so so we have infrastructure that people just describe as being a continuous footway where the footway doesn’t really properly continue which obviously is

Confusing uh what that means is I know to offer everyone listening today a note of caution so when I say continuous footway or someone else in this meeting uses the term or you think about a continuous footway we might all be meaning something quite different from each

Other secondly in this work we we thought both about continuous footways and about footway crossovers both together being tightly related to one another and what what I mean when I say footway crossover is what we’re all familiar with at entrances to private driveways private accesses where the footway the pavement continues but it’s

Possible to drive over the top of that for Access and for anyone who’s got no idea of what I’m meaning when I talk about a continuous footway that idea offers a good starting point and and that’s something we’re all used to as an idea and we can easily debate where that’s a

Good idea and what would make it a bad idea and we saw our work on this as sticking sitting in that context looking at when it is and when it’s not a good idea to continue a footway and and when that works or fails for pedestrians and and particularly around incl issues around

Inclusion and then thirdly thirdly as an introductory point in our work we could see that what’s currently being built and what’s been called continuous footway quite often isn’t providing the degree of priority to pedestrians which we think people have been hoping for and we think that has consequences quite

Severe consequences around the access ility of streets so effectively we are flagging up in our research that there is a problem that what people have you know that people are are right to have been concerned about some of what’s changing on their streets but we’ve also been

Clear that the failure of some of what we’ve seen in in the terms I’ve already expressed isn’t proof that footways should never be continued over any spaces used for vehicle access um so we’ve provided in the reports a whole set of recommendations looking at those questions and that

Brings me to what the main points are I want to make today um our recommendations include a set of important points about when it might work to continue a footway and when it probably won’t work for example we have said that continuous footways probably require that vehicles are slowed to

Something like a walking speed uh and we’ve said that they probably won’t work in a safe and an inclusive manner if there are vehicles moving both in and out of a side road at the same time and we’ve said they probably won’t work well if there’s a

Queue of exiting vehicles and we’ve made clear that conditions on the main road must allow those driving to stop and wait comfortably without getting stressed that they’re irritating other drivers behind them before they turn in um but now that that would rule out in many ways the use of continuous footways

At most Side Road Junctions in Britain just now but but the things I’ve just listed as issues vehicle speeds and volume of traffic entering or leaving a side road complex situations with cars and trucks and buses driving in and out of a side road old at the same time cues of

Vehicles that pedestrians need to squeeze between drivers turning into a side road who are worried about getting across a stream of oncoming traffic or who feel unable to stop before turning in case they irritate somebody behind them those things are going to be issues for any design in which we want

Pedestrians to be safe but for for any situation which we want to be inclusive and and that’s what I really really want to draw attention to today um those things aren’t about continuous footways particularly those things are going to make the difference in terms of real inclusion and real safety if a junction

Has you know even if a junction has a more conventional design so if we are going to make our streets inclusive at our side road Junction safe then there will be no magic p piece of infrastructure which will make a big difference on its own

For any changes to work we are going to need to make big changes to how the whole system is working if we are going to be Comfort if we’re going to be able to have a situation where a driver turning into a side road is going to feel comfortable

Giving way to a pedestrian crossing the side road or waiting to cross then that requires a particular set of conditions on the main road the whole main road has to be designed with that in mind and if there be any hope of an inclusive and safe situation then we can’t have

Pedestrians faced with vehicles approaching at high speed along the side road or queuing to exit the side road while there are also people driving into it and that means the whole design of the side road and the level of traffic it’s carrying have to be

Right so I’m going to leave you with an image which I’m sharing on my screen now I hope uh this is is a wooden Cube which has had icing put on top of it and a couple of birthday candles added um for me this is a way to illustrate what

I think is one of the big risks when we think about Side Road Junctions which is that we end up talking about local details when we need to also be thinking about the wider system so if you like getting tangled up in the need to be getting tangled up in discussing the the

Color of icing on the cake or the arrangement of the candles when the biggest problems are with what the cake is actually made of and whether that’s ible or not so we’re faced with a key problem we have lots and lots of Side Road Junctions which are of a kind of

Middle status not quiet enough or small enough to be trivial to cross for a pedestrian but not busy enough to be one of the few places where ever going to install traffic signals we’re only going to be able to install expensive things in a few places and whatever we come up

With will only work where conditions are right so before talking about specific designs or as part of thinking about specific designs we’re going to need to think about how the whole system is going to work so that the Junctions we have you know so that the designs we

Have Avail available can be used and can be used appropriately and so that the general system creates an environment in which pedestrians can have have a decent experience everywhere and actually in many places we can redesign streets so that what is currently a side road Junction is no longer a side road

Junction in in that way anyway uh so nothing about today can work in isolation this is about having to reform everything works so just to finish I’d like to encourage people to take a look at what we’ve written in in the reports from living streets and how our findings

And in those Point directly to those questions thanks thank you very much Robert yes so the solution is to change everything um that’s uh it’s a it’s a thing I’ll come on that later but finally for our presentation we have Daisy and Daisy as you said just feel free to crack on or

Even comment on what you’ve heard you’ve got the the final opportunity here thank you thanks so much uh and um you know it’s always great going last because I sometimes feel I should just say what they said and then just step away because every single slide every single

Presenter has kind of summed up some of the issues that we’re facing in Adra and some of the challenges and and opportunities as well so I’d like to carry forward I’ll rattle through the slides I’m conscious there’s over 100 about 100 questions questions in the chat so I’m standing in between

Answering those question of the conversation um so I’ll just rattle through my slides very quickly I want to carry on the theme of what Roberts just said about a system change and stepping back and looking at how this conversation around side Ro zebra fits within the wider kind of discussion

Around change that is required transformational change that’s required within our cities and towns and places so I’m dais Nar and I have the immense privilege of working as the head of placemaking and mobile ility at the city of penber council and my job is to join the dots between transport and planning

And to always step back and look at why why are we doing this and you know whether we’re talking about the detailed designs uh like side Ro zeas or P Crossings or whether we stepping back to look at what we call an edinb the circulation plan which is looking at uh

You know Network design for walking cycling public transport uh cars Freight um I have that privilege of being able to join the dots or try to join the dots within the council I came to Aden in 2004 to do my Master’s Degree um for one year and I stayed because look at these

Pictures I mean Adra is an amazing magical beautiful city um and it’s impossible not to fall in love with Adra uh next slide please but like so many cities and I know John’s Illustrated some of the issues at you know at the micro level but at the macro level

Edinburgh is facing some real real challenges and one of the things that we we aiming to do in in the council and you know with our city Partners is to really face up to these challenges acknowledge the problems that we have and then look ahead to uh to our future

Streets and what we can um how we can um you know transform our streets and our places to truly embed uh the principles of of people place and movement uh in in our city so here’s some examples of our city center you know I don’t need to say

Much more than what these images they speak for themselves these Capital streets and what should be absolute joy to to be uh traversing through to travel to um instead um vehicle dominated not fun to be not fun to be there at the moment um how are we dealing with this

Um couple of years ago three interrelated strategies were approved by city leaders so that’s a city Mobility plan our climate strategy and the 20-minute neighborhood strategy and in each of these and each of the action plans that sit underneath them we as a council have reiterated our ambition and

Our um commitment for that transformational change in our streets where we reinforce a sustainable transport hierarchy walking and Wheeling at the very top and last summer we had a city-wide consultation on what we call as I said the circulation plan um and alongside that the different action

Plans that all come together to form that that holistic lens of our streets that’s active travel air quality public transport parking biodivers see all of that working together to give us that holistic lens of what drop it said that system change that that we need to see

In our streets the active travel action plan we’ve costed at about 800 million to 1.2 billion pounds in Edinburgh so it’s not you know we can continue to Tinker around our our streets or if you want that transformational change this is the kind of change that we’re looking

At um and it includes big capital projects and capital investment you know from Bridges to Junction redes designed to a fully segregated a safe uh cycle network but alongside that we went out to consultation on smaller smaller things smaller interventions which I think are equally transformational so

Drop Cur program where we have 177,000 drop curvs and accompanying tactile paving uh implementing and forcing the pavement ban which is due to come in the next couple of weeks in in adur decluttering our Pavements providing places to rest better Crossings and increasing opport unities for people to

Cross the street uh next slide please no surprises here whatsoever it’s a snapshot of um what people said in the consultation people want better Crossings 30% of respondents to the consultation said that limited Crossing opportunities had a negative impact on how the family feel about moving around

While walking healing or cycling in the area next slide please and even now we have um a real unmet demand for Crossings in Edinburgh each year we receive far greater number of requests for pedestrian Crossings than we can build we had 114 requests last um over

The past 18 months and we have a waiting list that goes on to 2030 so status quo is just not working and we need to make sure that we are able to take all of this into account what people want in in what we’re doing going forward um next

Slide please so again I’ll rattle through these very quickly you know you’ve seen other other presenter slides we’re doing similar things hoodway build outs race La refug uh John showed some pictures of you know build outs that we’re doing uh some temporary work that we’re doing to start to U you know in

Advance of permanent infrastructure that can be built in um next slide please U we also ran a learning event that Robert very kindly uh came along to city fber council for our for our teams for my colleagues to make sure that we are you know right at The Cutting Edge of what

Needs done some very quick examples of um what we’re doing this is a street in Edinburgh where we we’re incorporating public realm improvements as well so uh you can see we’ve got trees um benches to create a more pleasant space and really you know putting drop cups back

In so nothing you know groundbreaking but things that are starting to take shape and make it easier for people to cross next slide please um this is our city center west to east link which is our big uh the first of our big Capital active travel schemes that connects the

West of the city to the city center and over here we’ve got you know as you can see there’s continuous footways and again taking into account what Robert said looking at the traffic volumes that are coming in through our side streets the traffic volumes as you can see on

That Main Street there so tuken Crossings tiger Crossings parall Crossings Advanced Cycle Stop lines contraflow cycle provision race table entrances at side roads next slide please um so you know we we’re doing all of this we’re putting the infrastructure in but you can’t do all of that without

The necessary kind of um you know alignment with the behavior change and culture change that needs to happen you know we’ve talked earlier about worries that people have especially with um disabled communities who you know who who who are not quite sure how to navigate these changes in our streets uh

Our com’s team produced a video showing how to use these new Junctions um put ways um you know and and we starting to really ramp up the communication around how how we need to change our streets why we need to change our streets what we’re doing and how we use them uh We’ve

Set up yesterday at committee there was um the city has approved the setting up of an accessibility commission so it’s an independent commission that sits um that scrutinizes the work that we do and that guides Us in in some of these tricky questions that we have to

Navigate if we have to make our city inclusive and safe for everybody um last slide I just wanted to end by saying that we are very team uh to explore local zebrra Council has instructed us as officers to go away work with transport Scotland look at pilot

Projects we’ve got a couple in the pipeline um so very very excited and very keen to incorporate all of these different measures but set very firmly within that transformational change that that is required that system change that’s required for us to um to make Adra as as inclusive as resilient as um

Carbon neutral as as possible I’ll stop here um I don’t know if I’ve gone over my time sorry John but really look forward to the conversation and look forward to learning from everyone as well because that’s what I’m here thank you no thank you no you didn’t go over

Your time Daisy but we are together over the time that we have had so if all the speakers would like to put their um cameras and switch themselves back on um just so you know as I said right at the outset we’re obviously shorter at time

Than we hope we might be but I didn’t want to cut into any of those speakers asn’t Brian um uh just because um it’s it’s good to hear what the different perspectives we’ve got um we’ve had over 150 questions if you count the ones that came beforehand and uh I I noticed that

Of you know 850 people were here as well it’s extraordinary number and we can’t do justice to all of that so what I’m going to do is try and pick the bones out and I won’t name any of the questioners uh of some of the biggest

Questions I think and da I think I’d like to start with you but also it will um apply to you Chris as well which is there’s um a huge issue and the cost of it all so in your different ways I suppose Chris in terms of the experience

That that you have had in just how much these things cost when you’re doing that kind of comprehensive reconstruction but Daisy um if I can start with you but then Chris if you’ll pitch in which is as as you said you’ve got 17,000 Junctions where there isn’t you know

Some Bas the basic provision how do you propose to go about that um you know it comes back to what I said at the beginning it’s hidden in plain sight there are so many of them um and that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that number what is your what can be the

Strategy for that kind of level of change thanks John it’s not easy and you know anyone working in local government or or national government for that matter knows the resource pressures that we all that we all facing collectively what we’re trying to do is make a make

The money go further so as much as possible look at that whole street uh whole street um approach where you know if you’re doing something on a street do it all at once so you know making money go f further and faster second one is looking at the program so the drop

Curves that you mentioned you know at the moment you know we’ve got as and when work happens on streets whether it’s the maintenance of capital work drop CS get put in through projects but if it comes up as a program you know the scale of what needs done then you know

We can go to transport Scotland or different funding bodies and say look this is what we need this is the change that we need and then that becomes a program that can be funded and and delivered as as a as as one which helps in resourcing and helps us as as a

Conser deliv so a couple of things there in terms of how we are approaching it here okay and Chris obviously it costs a lot did you think or have you thought of doing things differently yeah I mean they do cost a lot of money I think you know wol Forest extremely fortunate to

Be given many you know awarded Min Holland funding which was you know probably the first time in history in London that kind of level of money was given to One bars to go off and do things and that obviously allowed a lot of things that we hadn’t done previously

Um mve forward I our view is it’s or for us VI is it’s it’s building that in accepting that if you want to do this stuff it does cost money maybe you just need to frame your delivery programs without trying to you know accept delivering a smaller number of schemes

But maybe bigger ones or more comprehensive ones it’s then do you have other programs running parallel that look to do some of those and I hate the term quicker wins but you know there’s more like kind of local accessibility issues until such time you can then come

Along as part of a major project and redesign the street kind of end to end so I think it acceptance really that that’s the way these things cost money and and how you how you make the case and get the funding to the a with that

So thanks Chris I should just say that we’re doing some work with Glasgow at the moment where one of our approaches this to take a whole kind of estate approach to this and just say well that is a capital scheme I think that’s that danger and that’s about prioritization

You know and walking cycling that’s the top of our uh there are top of our priorities so actually why don’t we prioritize doing these all day every day kind of areawide schemes rather than perhaps some other types of big scheme that we might otherwise think of doing

Brian if I can turn to you sorry yeah around the cost of not doing it as well and I think that needs to be fact yeah although we’re so unused to making that kind of case as it were Brian just a particular question some people talk

About cost as well on I’ll come on to some other questions about the zebras did you look whether at at or when you were at Manchester previously about the relative cost of uh introducing simple zebras relative to comprehensive reconstruction yeah absolutely I mean the paint is cheap bit of it we even

Looked at like cheaper ways of doing like tactile as well with like a like companies like Tac grid where you can put plastic down and paint over it and get that kind of effect so like how can we do a mass roll out quickly so yeah it was like

A the difference between doing like a full zebra or signals or Side Road entries or or continuous footways depending on the The Junction you’re looking at you’re looking like 60 70 plus Grand to do that where it can be like four or five to do a zebra in the

Cheapest way there obviously lots of caveats with costs and framew but it was like an order of magnitude cheaper and I know uh great Manchester still want to roll things out on mass when they get the nod and it does give you that option when things are cheaper but I’m

Definitely with Chris as well that rolling out that kind of major project cementing it all in doing it is great but it’s always been hard to make the case for investment on local streets and that’s where most of the uh the walking is happening so I think we have got like

A cheap solution now thanks on the zebra side of things Brian can you just very quickly say it you probably said it before but just summarize when I mean all right following wind when might there be authorization to do simple zebras yeah I mean government to say an

Exact date but we do know that the the tsrgd is up for review and that’s the the mechanis for getting these things approved we think there’s an overwhelming case to make them approved so we’re just like a at the moment just like satisfying ourself that we know

When these things are going to be used and where they’re appropriate what the surrounding conditions all the stuff that the the fellow panelists are will be asked for advice on that and we want to gather our thoughts on that so we’re we’re recommending these things in the right places so when that document’s

Done or be it like if you remember back to the last one and I know you will because I know I do the the word like like a pre- doents like signing the way that came out saying hey we think we’re heading in this direction so maybe we’ll

Issue something like that at the moment we’re tied up with lots of legislation around a future transport Bill and he Goods than the rest but it’s all part of that package given us suitably like a vague answer there fine as as a classic civil servants servant Brian I expected

Nothing less B um in Cardiff um so what what what what happens to them now you’ve done this research they’re still there what are their plans and in Wales more broadly do you know in terms of simple zeas no not the most updated one the last was

Where we spoke was about putting up um getting the approvals to put the the symbol Crossings in place and I don’t think I’m not sure what the progress is there yet they’re probably thinking lot of a lot of focus on 20 M hour things at the moment I imagine over there and

There was a detailed question which I don’t know if you know was there any um before and after Collision analysis for these sites do you know if that’s been done no no not for this trial we did not look at those okay it was just a two week observation yeah thanks very much

There’s another broad issue as well which has come up a number of times and ask Jonathan if you can answer this first but also Robert I’ll be interested in your take which is the classic one of tactiles or no tactiles how does that you know when do you think that um sorry

If Chris sorry Robert if you can answer that first and also Chris if you could just come back in what your experience is sorry Jonathan I’ve got a separate question for you um so can you have tactile paving with continuous footway so to speak and okay so I can’t answer

That in the time we have because everybody will have in their mind something different when we talk about a continuous footway um so if you want to make you know the image I think I’d like to leave people with would be to think about a private driver way so start with a private

Driveway somebody drives in and out once a day or twice a day um do we want tacti Paving there and broadly no we don’t because once you start doing that everywhere the whole street becomes very confusing because then the whole street becomes a see of taac Paving so start

From there and then start saying okay what if that gets a bit bigger what if it gets a bit wider what if the traffic levels across that get a bit a bit stronger at what point do we want to do what and at a certain point you know think are going to get

Complicated and at that point things are going to break down and maybe we don’t have pedestrian priority but perhaps at that point actually we no longer want to continueous foot where we want something else um and yeah that’s that’s that’s all the answer I’m going to try and give

At the moment it’s a very complicated issue and do we or do we not want tactile paving at continuous footways is not that question can’t be answered without getting into the detail and if I can uh summarize some my understanding from your research as well is when

You’ve got what you have called a real continuous footway the definition that is that you would not need tactile paving in a sense yeah you’re we’re certainly heading towards something like that again it’s still even then more more complicated because at that point we start to have to think about some

Other issues that are not about safety and priority they’re about how does somebody who is blind or partially cited find their way across a space which becomes to some extent an open space yeah we’ve we’ve started to tackle that what we’ve actually said the the important thing we’ve said is that this

Requires some coordinated work that you know it’s this should not be being left to individual designers to say well I’m going to try this and I’m going to try that that’s not helping and is is is a bad approach and I think what you’ve hinted at there

As well about if there being some kind of thresholds again a number of questions about this when to when not to that would be very helpful Chris just on the TCT tailes issue that’s obviously something I’m sure you’ve heard about and have thought about in in wels and Forest how did that

Go yeah I think you know Forest there was a and this predates my time there just a conscious decision to not put tactiles in you know as said it’s as Rob said a very complex and subjective matter so rightly or wrongly it was feeling that um you know that we were

Creating side streets with very low flows and we didn’t take a threshold but typically 250 to 500 Vehicles a day maximum um that want to remove all of that infrastructure that typ typically you know make people see as a road and and maybe the the kind of subconscious

Priority or lack of priority that gives different users so the from day one was kind of get rid of all that and then we think we can mitigate you know the other factors in terms of reducing vehicle speeds you know and stuff like that so I think moving forward I’m really kind of

Keen to kind of go through the living streets work and and other bits of research and see whether um you know we need to kind of take a a review on that but um I think for now we will continue um on the basis that we won’t put them

In where low low flows are achieved thanks very much Jonathan um just quickly you I think you raised a really interesting point but a number of question has raised as well which is if some it actually goes back to the I think it was the New Zealand example

Sorry Australian example which is some have some don’t in terms of simple zebras you got any thoughts about that about so where do we move from that because that seems like a fairly obvious one which is if we get used to seeing zebras do drivers think they don’t have

To turn where there aren’t any zebras what what would your take be on that well it’s it’s definitely a challenge I think we need to look at some some of the questioning has come in in for of e education we brought out the highway code with with with very little

Education so that’s that that’s the context that we we we chose for whatever um we chose for whatever reason I think my general answer would be that whatever we have um our regulation and our design should should complement one one another if we have designs intuitively say to do

Something that is contrary to our regulations it’s it’s it’s problem problematic so I think all all designs um all side streets should be be backing up our our regulations and intuitively um supporting our regulations but we we do need to consider networks as other people have have talked about and if we’re doing

Something in one part of the city and something totally different in another part of the city that’s obviously going to be confusing to to all Street users yeah so quickly throwing it back to you on that as well it seems to me again number of questions about this is the

Whole idea of with the tsrgd changes we’re doing this sort of stuff there really does seem to be with the highway code a real need for government to take hold of and say let’s get some proper education about this things are changing side streaks are like this is this is

What we’re expecting can you anticipate that that would be something would follow on from the tsrgd rather we just do some technical work in a corner here that the general public will never know about but actually a proper sort of com’s campaign really yeah well this is

Kind of the space that active traveling exists in like a colleagues in the department for transport set the regulations and go well there’s the regulation it’s difficult for the people that set the regulations then say how to interpret it in different designs they kind of leave that up to the highway

Authorities as the highway authorities but we exist in a space where if Highway authorities want some clarity we can get some best practice we can put some guidance together and we work on it and it is on our list of things to address um so the more people that ask us to do

That across England the more we will put some guidance together and we can work in that space and we can see it from the local Authority perspective so sorry are you inviting delegates to write into active travel engine the suggest it should be done yeah and sorry did I say

That yeah even with the missing questions that we’re not goingon to ask I’m quite happy to contact act totravel england. gov.uk I’ll make more all my team who are very stretched little bit matter but yeah this is what we exist for we exist to work in the space to

Help local authorities find a way to introduce regulations and changes and and as Robin said it’s it’s a Continuum like a continuous footway through to through zebra there are ways already of getting the the benefits and the desire you want and to get that clear priority

And so we’re happy to advise people on that so yes lovely that way I’m really conscious that we’re at the end of it now and I’m sorry that that we haven’t been able to do justice all the questions and stuff like that I suppose there’s just two things I can say on

That one is Will as as Brian has said do feel free um to to contact individuals you will find a lot of information about what they’ve done the slides will be available afterwards um uh so let’s try and keep that conversation going there’s obviously the the conference that I

Mentioned as well we can go into this more detail um by all means get in touch through um the the organization to ask further questions I’ve just got one final slide um which I’d like to show if that’s all right um this is something I did beforehand and and I’ve it’s size

Streets Junctions blueprint question mark because I hadn’t listened to any of the presentations I knew it was coming and also because maybe it’s not in any case but just some sort of summary thoughts if you can just keep a tapping down Mark so this is my first thing

Which is we’ve got to change how these Junctions look in the first place whether we’re going to go for continuous footways or whether we’re going to go for simple zeas or whatever or whether we’re going to do nothing else but we need to do this because uh we need to

Have shorter Crossing distance and reduced turning speeds my personal take this has been covered by a couple of questions but something else is we need to raise them all as well and that’s where the the possibility of even with having simple zebras we’re still going to be talking about reconstruction and

The reason we need to do that is I think it’s far better for all users we can go straight across rather and down and up and up and down and and not withstanding the fact that actually we know we have problems when when we drop we don’t get

The drops right the drop shifts slightly over time it gets punded and all that sort of stuff the next thing we do need to have blister Paving on both sides of the crossing other than possibly in those examples that um Robert was talking about where it’s so low like the

Kind of driveway things or those real continuous footways my personal take is that you could have a color optional for that and that could be about contextual issues um questions were raised about speed as well what do you do if you’re turning off 40 m hour my suggestion is

You probably don’t do it um if the main road is 30 or 20 we can do that we do need to make sure that that that we have the speed as slow as possible the issue about shun as well I think is really important a number of questions were

About people being worried about shuns frankly I don’t care too much about chance I do care about people getting knocked down when they’re walking or Wheeling or cycling across a junction we’ll get used to it and but nevertheless of course if you’ve got lower speeds there was one quickly I’ll

Touch on that and it goes back to my first one about tighten up the radii a lot of questions here what about refu Vehicles what about ambulance what about hgvs and so forth what Brian mentioned the context issues so did Robert my personal take is there there’s some

Issues about construction there and how we need to might need to protect the corners Vehicles can turn out into the other lane to turn left and we shouldn’t be designing our Junctions around the needs of a tiny number of vehicles in certain context we may feel that

Actually we can’t do too much about it because of the specific demands for a large number of those Vehicles curve build outs are another thing you might do my take with them be from that Basics thing of let’s tighten it up and raise the crossing shove a zebra off it on it

If we can obviously issues about that we’ve discussed about whether they all have some don’t have and then almost as your your ideal solution and go for um continuous foot real continuous footways as as as Robert’s research describes them where that cost is Justified and that’s probably to do with local build

Environment quality or or or something like that where you don’t want to load a Street full of of stripy black and white lines but the starting point is we need to rethink how we need to focus on and I think a real campaign to think that this is not good

Enough the way that our side street Junctions are at the moment um we really need to deal with that as the first point tighten them up raise those Crossings and let’s see what more we can do in due course I’m sorry it’s been such a Whistle Stop tour um but thank

You for joining us um amazing 850 people were here of the 1,00 signups do sign up for the the conference if you can make it there you go and um uh take in take all the information that’ll come your way in due course in terms of the links

To the research that we’ve had um and uh and have a look at that ask further questions of people who are on this on this call and um I wish you very well in your endeavors to making side streets much better for people to walk wheel and

Cycle across thank you to all our speakers thank you to for landoor for putting this on and um I wish you well in your day jobs Che here