Investing in better street and urban design will improve road safety, UK charity Sustrans argues in this article written for the T&A to coincide with Road Safety Week.

Last year there were 250 accidents on Bradford’s roads, many of which involved pedestrians or people on bikes. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable. But most of these are avoidable. With the right design, our streets can be safe and pleasant places where more people choose to walk, cycle or scoot their everyday journeys.

Road Safety Week (18-24 November), organised by the charity Brake, campaigns for safer streets, getting everyone to play our part in driving responsibly. It also calls for longer term action to tackle the reasons why road safety is so poor. The road itself.

Look closely and it’s clear that our streets and urban areas are designed around cars rather than people. Roads feel dangerous and polluted, often with little or no greenery. There are few places to sit down and rest. Pavements are narrow and crowded, making it difficult for people with prams or mobility aids to find space to walk to work or school. Sometimes they don’t exist at all. Pedestrians may be forced to navigate cumbersome crossing points and barriers to continue their route.

New housing is typically built on the assumption that everyone has a car and will be able to drive to the shops, schools or local services. This over-dependence on the car is making our streets congested and polluted and it means most of us get much less exercise than we need. Bradford has some of the highest child and adult obesity levels in the UK.

Bradford is world-renowned for sport cycling, but travelling by bicycle on the city’s roads can feel a bigger risk than most people feel comfortable with. They are much more likely to choose the car instead. In 2017 just 1% travelled a bike three or more times a week.

Sustrans Bike Life 2017 research in seven cities found that more than half of people would like to cycle more but road safety puts them off, while 64% said protected bike lanes would help them feel more confident to cycle.

We need to redesign our streets so that even the most vulnerable people in our society feel safe enough to leave the car at home and choose a healthier transport option. This means long term, sustained investment in high quality walking and cycle routes, much in the same way we’ve invested in decades of road building. It also requires a wider change in the way we develop our towns and cities. If planners worked from a new principle that all new approved housing schemes are located within a pleasant 20 minutes walk of basic goods and services, we would be much more inclined to get active in our daily journeys.

Bradford already has a strong base of walking and cycling routes to build from. The Spen Valley Greenway – a traffic-free path between Dewsbury and Bradford - links to Sustrans’ 16,500 miles of National Cycle Network, while CityConnect’s popular new segregated cycle ‘superhighway’ route between Leeds and Bradford is a high quality path which attracts thousands of people commuting to work and school. Bradford’s Big Red Bridge, a pedestrian and cycleway, is a vital connection for communities on either side of Manchester Road, while a new 2.6km missing Canal Road Greenway from Bradford to Shipley is also a welcome new addition to help more people walk and cycle to work or school.

Sustrans is working with local authorities to create more links to these routes across the city and West Yorkshire. But long term investment could create a vibrant network of interlinking routes, connecting peoples’ homes with shops, services, workplaces and schools. That would mean safer, healthier, and happier roads for people, not cars.

Sustrans is a national charity which makes it easier for more people walk and cycle. Find out more at www.sustrans.org.uk