The Benefits of car-free towns
Transform Scotland recently published a report into car-free cities.
It looked at European experience and concluded that making cities car-free has improved prospects for businesses where it has happened. The report focuses on Oslo but also looks at Bremen (Germany), Lund (Sweden) and Enschede (Netherlands).
The report finds that businesses are generally very nervous but that, in practice, the interventions increase city centre footfall and encourage people to stay longer and spend more.
The only significant issue is the potential for the improved retail prospects to lead to increased rent (though this can be mitigated through the increased footfall).
Well, I’ve never been to Lund or Enschede or even Oslo.
But I have some very local experience of everything the report describes.
How it started - Walthamstow Wars
Back in 2014, when he was Mayor of London, Boris Johnson announced £100m of funding for various London boroughs to become “mini-Hollands”. Waltham Forest won £30 million and the first project was to close Orford Road (the historic main road of Walthamstow; though the modern town centre has now moved a mile down the road) to cars.
Honestly, all hell broke loose.
The controversy even made the Today programme on Radio 4. Everyone else in Britain was fighting over Brexit. Here we were at each others’ throats over mini-Holland.
Protestors marched on the Town Hall carrying a coffin to symbolise the death of Orford Road.
Image: Waltham Forest Guardian (East London & Essex Guardian Series)
Many (though by no means all) of the businesses in Orford Road were genuinely fearful that without passing motor traffic, their businesses would be harmed.
How it ended
That was all five years ago.
What has happened since?
Well, the changes happened. Orford Road was closed to cars; though remained open to buses and bikes:
Businesses did indeed miss out on passing motor trade. But it turned out that most of the passing motor traffic was just that: passing. Whereas the newly pedestrianised street was a nice place to be. People started buying an ice cream and hanging round. Footfall went up. And businesses gained additional pavement space to display wares or put out tables:
Virtually every shop that was here in 2016 is still there in 2021; including those that were most vociferously opposed to the changes. There isn’t a single vacant site or charity shop.
Now, obviously, not all of that is down to mini-Holland. But, equally, it seems fair to say that the coffin to symbolise the death of the street may have been misplaced.
But what about the politics? After all, these things only happen with political leadership. Well, luckily, there’s absolute clarity on this as well.
This was not one of those projects implemented by a faceless council. Instead, deputy leader Clyde Loakes led forcibly from the front. He was the public face of the project, arguing face to face with protestors next to the coffin and quoted in every article, press release and blog post. He was ubititous on local social media. If someone was going to be punished by voters, it would be Clyde Loakes.
In the 2018, he topped the vote in his ward with 67% of the vote:
The Labour vote was similar in the ward that includes Orford Road.
In fact, Labour (the party that had implemented the changes and was publicly associated with mini-Holland in Walthamstow, despite the funds coming from Tory-controlled TfL) saw its share of the vote go up.
If local politicians fear being punished at the ballot box for making towns car-free, they should fear not.
In many ways, it’s obvious why that is the case. Bus users benefited from the bus service benefiting from a clear run without traffic. Bike users benefited from bike racks and quiet streets. Businesses benefited from increased footfall and residents benefited from a nicer street environment. The only people who lost out were people who had previously driven down Orford Road to get to somewhere else but, it turns out, that what feels like a lot of traffic is actually caused by not many people - because cars are so space-inefficient.
In that context, it’s important that car-free towns don’t become bus-free towns. Because buses are vehicles they can sometimes get written out of pedestrianisation plans. This is unwise. Buses are one of the most space and carbon-efficient way of getting people into town centres yet invented. If buses are excluded, the business fears over reduced footfall may start to become a reality.
Communicate
While the Walthamstow experience is that the initial rage of protests does subside, it is obviously better to avoid the protests in the first place.
The furious pace envisaged by the Government’s bus and bike strategies could be designed to alienate people. The Transport Scotland report emphasises the importance of early communication, of collaboration with local businesses and taking them on the journey. That doesn’t mean giving a vocal minority a veto but it does mean taking time to build support.
The Government is currently in spending mode. There are funds for active travel. There are funds for bus projects. There are funds for towns. All of them can be repurposed to create car free (not bus free) towns. Now’s the time to start building those coalitions of support.
