Councils urged to prioritise pavement maintenance

12.21 | 2 May 2019 | | 10 comments


The condition of pavements is limiting more than 3.5 million older people from walking in the UK, a new survey suggests.

Nearly one in three (31%) of respondents to the YouGov survey, carried out for walking charity Living Streets, said that cracked and uneven pavements limited them from walking ‘more or at all’.

24% of respondents named obstructions on pavements, including pavement parking, as a reason preventing them from walking, while 22% said people driving too quickly.

The survey also found that nearly half of older adults (48%) would walk more if their pavements were well-maintained, there were lower speed limits (28%) or more places to rest (25%).

The findings of the survey were published on 1 May to mark the beginning of National Walking Month, which this year urges local councillors to improve and prioritise pavement maintenance.

The #nine90 campaign aims to highlight the need for streets to be designed with nine-year olds and 90-year olds in mind, as then they ‘become accessible to everyone’.

Joe Irvin, chief executive of Living Streets, said: “If we all viewed our streets through the lens of an older adult – or a child, a wheelchair user or someone living with sight loss – we would soon begin to understand how unfit for purpose a lot of them are.

“Having well-maintained and clear pavements would help older adults walk more. We want local authorities to be reassessing their streets and seeing how they could be made better for people aged nine and 90 – and therefore better for everyone.”

The #nine90 campaign is backed by television presenter Kate Humble, who is calling for people to walk more during May.

She said: “Walking doesn’t have to be about climbing mountains; you can get just as much from a walk around your local town.

“What does make a difference is having a town which feels safe to walk in – whether you’re nine or 90.”


 

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    I’m obviously not including the infirmed or disabled Adrian who understandably may choose not to walk, nor those in, or pushing a wheelchair, I’m just puzzled by these presumed able-bodied people who mysteriously are ‘prevented from walking’ at all it would seem, which I don’t believe is the case. Those who drive still have to get out at some point and walk. My town is no different from any other and it is possible to walk from one end to the other if one chooses. I can understand reluctance to walk along rural roads and lanes on the other hand where there are no footways.


    Hugh Jones
    Agree (1) | Disagree (0)
    +1

    Plenty of people do walk, Hugh, but you don’t see the ones that are prevented from walking because, by definition, they are not walking. They’ve decided to drive instead or not go out at all. I am lucky enough to be fit enough to walk and cycle almost anywhere. Many are not so lucky.


    Adrian Berendt, Tunbridge Wells
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    0

    I know pushing a pram or wheelchair on the footway can be difficult, but the survey is apparently about people not walking per se because they say they are somehow prevented from doing so, in which case why do I see people – young and old – walking everyday as I do, in and around my local city, towns and villages, no doubt repeated everywhere else in the UK?


    Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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    0

    Hugh is right that lots of people walk, but the road environment is so hostile to pedestrians that many choose not to walk short distances and some are actually prevented from doing so. If I were using our road in a wheelchair, or pushing a buggy, I can almost guarantee that I’d need to go in the road at some point. For some, that equates to ‘prevent’. On many routes, the hazards are not ‘occasional’, but frequent. In the 16 walking audits that we conducted, not 1 route met the DfT minimum standard of 70% and many did not achieve a 50% rating.


    Adrian Berendt, 20’s Plenty for Us, Tunbridge Wells
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    0

    Perhaps I took the survey too literally.. ‘prevented from walking’ to me meant what it said and not ‘were free to walk but occasionally encountered hazards en route’. I am sure the residents of Tunbridge Wells are free to walk about as much as in any other town in the UK encountering the same hazards. I don’t think they literally ‘never’ walk.


    Hugh Jones
    Agree (2) | Disagree (3)
    --1

    Charles highlights a good point, but we come to different conclusions. There are three steps in the argument about lower speed limits on urban roads.

    1) Do lower impact speeds cause fewer injuries? The answer is unequivocally “yes” (simple physics)
    2) Do lower initial speeds (the speed you are driving at before you see a danger) lead to lower impact speeds? Again “yes”, because (a) your field of vision widens, which enables you to spot the danger earlier and react faster (b) slowing from a lower speed takes less time.
    3j Do lower limits reduce initial speeds (Charles’s point). Overall, the evidence is “yes”, particularly where the limits are set over wide areas, such as in Bristol, Brighton, Edinburgh, etc. Even where the average speed has only reduced by 1 or 2 mph, this has a significant impact on casualties in itself. More importantly, where 20mph is introduced on faster roads, speeds drop by more. In other words, those who were previously ‘speeding’ at 35 – 40 on a 30mph road, now ‘speed’ at 30 – 35mph. Still too fast for many residential streets, but better than before and it’s the faster speeds which put pedestrians off most.


    Adrian Berendt, 20’s Plenty for Us, Tunbridge Wells
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    0

    Having just completed an audit of pavements in Tunbridge Wells, Hugh, I’d say yes – pavement parking, missing bricks, uneven surfaces, dropped kerbs either missing or in inaccessible places, A-boards, overgrown vegetation, junctions too wide to cross safely, lack of pedestrian crossings….where shall I stop?


    Adrian Berendt, 20’s Plenty for Us
    Agree (1) | Disagree (0)
    +1

    > Are they literally ‘prevented’

    Well, I once had to push a wheelchair up a road once as it was safer than even attempting to get a wheelchair up it, so yeah, I guess?


    David Weston, Corby
    Agree (1) | Disagree (0)
    +1

    Where on earth do the respondents live where, it seems, according to the survey that 24% were ‘prevented’ from walking, by obstructions? Are they literally ‘prevented’?


    Hugh Jones
    Agree (3) | Disagree (1)
    +2

    It seems that this survey is conflating driving speeds with speed limits. I wonder if “older adults” would prefer “lower speed limits” if they knew they would not have a significant effect on driving speeds, and whether it is actually lower driving speeds that they desire, regardless of the actual posted speed limits.

    I think the two should be clearly separated and explained in such surveys – because we know that if lower speeds are the goal, then lower speed limits are probably not an appropriate measure.


    Charles, Wells
    Agree (2) | Disagree (0)
    +2

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