Invest in walking for a sustainable future
Might walking be the ‘miracle cure’ to keep people healthier into old age? It’s a free, easily accessible and efficient local transport mode. Everybody has to walk, even if it’s just for very local journeys. Using a walking aid – stick, wheeler, buggy – enables people with health issues to extend their mobility and continue to be involved in community life.
It’s good for children too: their walking route to school can help embed healthy habits for life. Pedestrian-friendly streets can help to push back against the inequality in physical activity. Poorer families can’t afford gyms and health clubs but they can walk if local streets are safe, pleasant and well maintained. Walking rates increase in streets where traffic levels are lower and in quieter streets more people get to know their neighbours.
As our population across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is ageing their health needs are increasing, so supporting walking and wheeling also makes sense in economic terms. Physical activity rates have plummeted since the 1960s and we now spend an average 9 hours per day sitting. When footway condition is poor older pedestrians will avoid walking and parents are more likely to drive children to school. This leads to loss of fitness and independence.
Can the Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy (the new transport plan for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire, which is currently being developed), provide the vision and strategic direction for walking? It can draw on research findings to identify priorities and set goals. With a coherent framework that encourages best practice in walking and wheeling design and infrastructure development real progress can be made in upgrading the pedestrian environment. The alternative is a continuing patchwork of disparate and sometimes conflicting initiatives. With unitary authorities on the horizon there is some urgency about setting quality standards for walking.
What might a pedestrian-focused vision and strategic direction mean for Cambridge? First, a complete re-design of crossings and traffic light timings and the creation of new crossings to reflect and support pedestrian movement rather than restricting it to help road traffic. For example, green lights at junctions like Downing Street/St Andrew’s Street and Hills Road/Lensfield Road take so long that many cross on the red. Poor design, as in the Parker’s Piece to Regents Street shared crossing, doesn’t work well for pedestrians. We need crossings where walkers want to cross; their ‘desire lines’ should be mapped to guide new investment. Currently, thousands of bus users cross Emmanuel Street and St Andrew’s Street to reach the Grand Arcade shops, but must dodge taxis, buses and contra-flow cycling with no protected crossing points.
Second, re-directing investment into pavements especially in the city centre, where pedestrian numbers are greatest and pavement quality is poor. Broken and wobbly paving is a hazard and not easy to avoid. An FOI request to Addenbrooke’s disclosed that hundreds of pedestrians, most over 65, needed emergency admission to hospital following trips and falls when walking outdoors, with older people also suffering recurrent falls. The higher costs are for longer-term rehabilitation after a bad fall, not for the initial hospital stay, so the county council may save money by deferring repairs but incur costs in social care budgets.
Third, setting quality standards for streets, with clear goals and targets to deliver adequate lighting, good quality pavements, well-built crossings, and safe access to buses. Mill Road, a major retail and walking route, has been re-imagined with extended pavements, continuous footways, safe seating and green space. These ideas need testing elsewhere. Cherry Hinton Road, for example, has local shops and services too but heavy traffic and flooding in wet weather can make them difficult to access.
Fourth, improving quality on the Greenways and the Chisholm Trail to be more supportive for walkers. There is no seating, shade or decent lighting and walkers need to compete with fast moving bike traffic. Currently, walking can feel like an ‘add-on’ to a cycling route.
Claims that pedestrians are top of the transport hierarchy or partners in active travel mean nothing without a collective commitment in the Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy to plan, invest and deliver a transformative walking strategy in 2026.
[Originally published in the Cambridge Independent.]