Designing Living Streets

A Kiwi traffic engineer is showing the British how to make their vehicle-logged streets more pleasant places for people to be.

Steve Abley, a Christchurch-based Chartered Engineer, has co-written a new manual Designing Living Streets with Edward Hill who works for UK charity Living Streets, which champions streets and public spaces for people on foot.

The manual is being launched in London next week at a function in the House of Commons.

"Streets have lost their natural balance. We have been focusing far too much on building roads for cars to travel down with little thought given to other ways streets are used," says Steve Abley.

"This focus on vehicles has come at the expense of people who are now finding many streets unpleasant places to be. Streets are far more than just roads they are also places where friends and neighbours meet, places for commerce, recreation and play."

Steve Abley says putting walkers' needs first results in a better environment for neighbourhoods.

"Increasing the numbers of walkers in an area results in people lingering to interact and play, it makes people feel safer and discourages crime and anti-social behaviour."

Designing Living Streets has been written for every professional whose work impacts on the walking environment: traffic and highways engineers, planners, developers, t