Playing Out
I used to be in a gang. There were 10 of us and we hung out in the street, with bikes and balls. Most days the door bell would go and it’d be one of our number asking ‘is Chris playing out?’ More often than not, I’d hurriedly pull my shoes on and run out to do what 8yr olds do.
Hadfield Avenue is were I learnt to ride a bike, where I proudly removed the stabilisers before hurtling off with the others to the next road and then the next. The whole neighbourhood was our playground. It was a perfectly normal thing to do on a normal British street in the 70’s.
Today, the majority of parents must deny their kids this first, simple freedom because the space outside our homes is no longer safe. Instead we pop the kids in the car and run them round to protect them from others, doing the same thing. And that’s how we lost our playgrounds without even realising what was happening.
If, 10 years ago, someone had asked us ‘can we increase the traffic in your road by 30%?’ We’d have been incandescent with rage, but that’s exactly what has happened. Without any consultation, residential streets have become short cuts and routes for drivers to avoid traffic filled main roads. There are over 20 billion more miles being driven past our front doors now than there where in 2009. Let that number sink in, maybe even get angry about it.
But there is hope. Today the government announced another £175 million to add to its nationwide Active Travel Fund which will be used to create cycling and walking routes and low traffic neighbourhoods. This started as a response to coronavirus, to make sure those that don’t own cars have a safe way to get around during the pandemic. But it’s much bigger than that. Whilst serving that important purpose, these temporary measures will give all of us the safe space we need to leave the car at home and try traveling under our own steam.
Sadly, there is a vociferous minority who don’t want us to try different, they want our residential streets to remain a convenience for vehicles to drive through. My vexation is because we have to defend and campaign for these things, to return to what we should never have lost.
About 80% of the UK’s roads were designed for living, places for people to play, grow up, and grow old. They were never meant to be co-opted and used as an overflow for our transport network, which is exactly what they have become.
Arguments for protecting the right to "rat run" outside homes are uniformly myopic. Objectors routinely exaggerate possible downsides and steadfastly fail to offer any alternatives, all whilst disregarding the enormous harms caused by keeping the status quo. It’s the equivalent of campaigning against chemotherapy because it’s unpleasant, whilst ignoring the consequences of not having the treatment.
It’s easy to instil fear about what might happen if we do something differently as we are by nature, wary of change. Luckily, the reforms being proposed across the UK, have already been proven to work, we don’t have to cross our collective finger and hope, we have examples and evidence. Lots of them.
In 2000 Hackney, used bollards and planters to curb rat running and keep residential roads first and foremost for those who lived there. By 2010 car use in the area halved, journeys by bike tripled and pollution plummeted.
The same strategy was introduced in Waltham Forest, East London under the ‘Mini-Holland’ banner. One of the main instigators of that attempt to rebalance the road hierarchy, was Councillor Clyde Loakes who simply wanted to stop rat running for his constituents, a noble goal that not everyone appreciated. During the consultation phase, 44% of residents vigorously objected. The Councillor received several death threats and was presented with a coffin to symbolise the pending demise of the local high street.
In fact, traffic on residential streets almost halved, the neighbourhood became a place to linger and as a result, the local shops that had previously been driven past, were revitalised.
Five years on, only 1.7% of residents want to see the traffic return. I suspect if Councillor Loakes tried turning the clock back, they’d present him with another coffin
Thankfully repeated surveys tell us that for every vociferous objector to these changes there are usually 6 people who want the chance to walk with the kids to school, or even let them ride, something currently unconscionable for most British parents yet routine for 50% of their Danish and Dutch counterparts just a few hundred miles away. It’s all too easy to believe "the loud" represent the many. We need to make sure the quiet majority is heard.
We are at a time in our history when leaders must think big. If we are to decarbonise our transport system, clean up our air and improve health, we need them to be as brave as Councillor Loakes. We Cannot afford to listen to a small number who ignore fact and offer no solutions.
The irony in all this is; it shouldn’t be a tough choice. Driving doesn’t make any of us feel good. Traffic filled neighbourhoods, don't make any of us happy. We need to be able to take joy in our journeys again. We need our kids to be able to tell their own tales about when they were playing out.