Terence Bendixson's plea for walking
Terence Bendixson has been a campaigner for safer streets for decades. He joined Living Streets (then the Pedestrians' Association) in 1969 and became instrumental in our campaign successes, going on to become our President until recently.
Here Terence looks back at Living Streets’ achievements and explains why we need your support to campaign for walking in the weeks and years to come.
First came crossings
Imagine high streets with no island refuges or zebra crossings and no 30mph speed limits. Tricky if you were on foot! Yet, even as cars were beginning to appear in numbers, that was what towns in Britain were like when the Pedestrians Association was founded by Tom Foley in 1929.
Pedestrian safety was also an issue in rural villages. A large print above my bedroom mantlepiece tells the story. The picture shows an open sports car with two goggled men in leather helmets, speeding around a bend. Beside the road, a horse pulling a cart rears up, several geese jump out of the back, a woman grabs a hand rail and a man on foot seeks to get hold of the horse's halter. Across the lane a child clutches a dog to his chest.
Yet in the thirties when the Pedestrians Association was in full force, much was achieved. The 30mph town speed limit was established and Parliament backed the first pedestrian crossings, later to become zebras with their orange or Belisha beacons.
Tom Foley founded the Pedestrians' Association in 1929.
An early zebra crossing, Wigan.
Highway engineers gained power
WWII was down time and afterwards, things got both better and worse. Floods of cars appeared but, for the Association, the sixties to the nineties was a difficult period. Deputations from the Association encouraged the Bishop of London to move a valuable amendment to a Road Traffic Act. It made parking on pavements illegal though only in Greater London. And since this time Living Streets has continued to campaign for clear pavements.
Streets had meanwhile become incredibly dangerous (and claimed the lives of so many pedestrians) that people walking had learned to take far greater care. The nineties also saw a change of fortune for the Association. I was part of the team that acquired funding to professionalise the organisation with branches in Scotland and Wales and contacts in hundreds of schools.
The age of place
Now something else is happening. The idea that urban streets should be designed for speeding vehicles is at long last, being challenged. This is particularly noticeable in London, Edinburgh and across Wales where 20mph has been adopted as the default speed limit in places where we live, work and shop.
Where I live in London I continue to see progress. For example, Westminster City Council has reduced Bond Street to a single lane for vehicles and converted the south side of the Aldwych into a paved park. The conversion of Park Lane southbound from floods of vehicles into a café-lined promenade is on the agenda. The Cadogan Estate is transforming the pavements of Sloane Street into wide floral walks, the Crown Estate has announced its intention to transform Regent Street, the Haymarket and Pall Mall East.
Part of the Strand in London has been pedestrianised.
The Pedestrian Pound research shows the spending power of customers who arrive on foot.
On the brink of a revolution
Something very simple is happening. The long-standing assumption that streets should be allocated to cars and vans is being challenged by the view that they are spaces for people. It is most noticeable in streets that are part of estates. In them the building-owners know the importance of footfall, as has been demonstrated by Living Streets’ excellent new report – the Pedestrian Pound. Those who walk can stop and shop. Many of those with wheels just roll past. We are on the brink of a revolution.
But as was always the case, Living Streets relies on support from members and supporters like me and you to campaign on these issues that can change so many lives. We need to support the team to get a pavement parking ban over the line, to ensure child-friendly streets become the norm and to make sure safer speeds are adopted everywhere.
Now is the perfect time to step up for walking
To continue their journey to safer streets for all, Living Streets needs our support more than ever. This year they are taking part in the Big Give campaign – any donation you give 3-10 December will be doubled.
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