Traffic Free Centres Lose Footfall.
- farmersfriendlincs
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
First hand in cities I have seen how footfall with pedestrianisation has dropped in Newcastle, Lincoln and Peterborough. Peterborough was a fine example whereby as we saw footfall in the centre drop Lincoln Road and Millfield in Peterborough was substantially busier. I worked in Banks in both the city centre pedestrianised area and out of the centre in Millfield. Indeed, whilst Lincoln Road was extremely busy with traffic it was a thriving shopping area filled with independent shops that thrived as those in the City centre perished. Pedestrianisation favours largeness and gentrification eroding the community of a town or city.
The problem is that making an area pedestrianised by itself is not a solution to making it busier. It has been a disaster in some of the towns I grew up around, namely Spalding, where my father had a shop, and Boston. To fully understand this I recommend reading two books by the economist Jane Jacobs: The easiest of the two reads is "Vital Little Plans" a collection of her short works. A larger read, that is a little dated but still valid is "The Life and Death of Great American Cities." It should be noted she was no lover of the automobile.
I explain some of the difficulty of pedestrianisation using Boston in Lincolnshire as an example here:
The problem is that people recognise the great freedom the car has given us but do not recognise the freedoms it has taken away. Our towns and cities are, still today, designed for the benefit of the car. I explain here.
My largest fear is what I see with pedestrianisation is gentrification that destroys the community in a City increasing its unaffordability. It is telling that those of us that favour pedestrianisation are usually middle class and well off and tend not to earn a living from the very streets we wish to see free of traffic.
A Quiet Street
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