8 minute read
Not all cyclists are Lycra-clad ironmen: A brief introduction to human-centred infrastructure design
Deborah Saunt, co-founder of the DSDHA practice and contributing author to a 2018 report on approaches to cycling in the capital,reflects on progress for creating cycling infrastructure that meets the diverse requirements of all those who could enjoy it.
Deborah Saunt
DSDHA
Deborah Saunt is a co-founder and Director of DSDHA, an architecture, urban design and spatial research practice based in London, whose spatial strategies include the public realm framework for the West End Project and the reimagining of Tottenham Court Road, the redesign of the Royal Albert Hall public realm – building on a Research Fellowship in the Built Environment of Albertopolis from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 – and a new park for the City of London, built over the tracks of Liverpool Street Station.
Climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemic; our planet is experiencing a raft of entwined social and environmental crises, in which our cities, mobility and inclusivity are all inextricably linked. Within this complex, bicycle travel has consistently been heralded as a vehicle of personal, urban and planetary health – and at no point in recent history has the need for public spaces that encourage walking, cycling, and the use of low-carbon public transport been more widely recognised. But how do we implement the required cycling infrastructure justly in the crowded, ever-changing city of London, where lack of space demands some form of sharing between a multitude of road users with conflicting needs?
We see the role of the urban designer as one that actively engages with such challenges, and we are constantly developing relevant and accessible methodologies for designing infrastructures which can help to improve the experience of London’s public realm for all users, which we outlined in our report. Entitled ‘Sharing the Beautiful Everyday Journey’, the report is a result of a two-year research Fellowship in the Built Environment, awarded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 1 . It seeks to improve the quality of our public spaces, mitigate the current tensions and make cycling (and walking) in London a more pleasurable and accessible mode of transport: one open to people of different ages and ability, rather than a specialism reserved for a (mostly male, mostly Lycra-wearing) few.
Since the report was written just before the pandemic, COVID-19 has driven changes in planning policy and regulation, which has led to a considerable amount of investment in cycling infrastructure by the Mayor of London. Major – if temporary – alterations to road layouts which encourage active travel have been introduced with previously unimaginable speeds and scale: more than 100km of cycle routes have been delivered or are under construction since the pandemic began, while infrastructure for 160 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods was introduced across the city in 2020 alone. Between April and June 2020, almost half of all journeys in the capital were made by walking or cycling, a rise of 29% with pre-pandemic levels, and recent figures published by Travel for London also indicate that the people cycling in London are more diverse than ever:
a recent report claimed, with 27% of the population as a whole having made a journey by bike, compared to 24% of Black people, 25% of Asian people, and 31% from mixed backgrounds.
Undoubtedly then, elements of the cycling infrastructure landscape provision for the increasingly diverse demographic of people using bikes must be recognised. However, as critical thinkers and designers, we must be asking whether the uptick in infrastructure does indeed serve the needs of such a diverse set of road users. The fact that over the same period there has continued to be a significant number of deaths resulting from collisions between vehicles and cyclists, the most notorious of these being at the infamously deadly junction between Southampton Row and Holborn, would suggest that inclusivity, mobility and public realm experience continue to elude planners in search of a truly harmonised infrastructure network.
We argue that creating cycling infrastructure in our dense cities that is inclusive to all requires a paradigm shift, away from modernist ideals of control, segregation and management delivered by generic engineered solutions, towards a human-centred, intersectional perspective rooted in codesign. It is only when the embodied experience of all road users is taken into account that they can be expected to be aware of, accountable to, and respectful of each other on their respective journeys. It is only then that such journeys will be beautiful.
Through our research, which focused on junctions in London of varying typologies where conflict typically arises, we identified characteristics of the nine most common types of cyclist: Lightning Lycra; Charging Courier; Hurrying Hipster; Everyday Commuter; Multi-Modal Commuter; Occasional Commuter; Pedalling Parent; Basket Biker; Slow Sightseer. But as well as this matrix of bicycle riders, at any one junction could be car drivers, taxis, HGVs, pedestrians, motorcyclists and new forms of micro mobility such as scooters and electric bikes too. Each of their experiences and decisionmaking cues must be accounted for, from surface type, to possible obstructions and paths of least resistance. Depending on the situation and location, each of the nine types of cyclists – as well as all other road users – will encounter their environment, and each other, differently. Street design must therefore work to facilitate an environment of shared, egalitarian space and empathetic toleration.
Our research shows that segregation and over-management of ‘flows’ of traffic types typically causes road users to psychologically distance themselves from other road users and grow protective of ‘their’ space, making everyone at higher risk of collision, conflict and bad experiences at the points where their paths cross; a junction, for example. In practice, these issues manifest through segregated cycles lanes, which tend to homogenise user speeds, and can favour more aggressive, faster cyclists while undermining the confidence of less experienced riders and pedestrians. Meanwhile, motorists can take a position of perceived superiority, thinking that cyclists should only occupy the infrastructure provided for them, and Quietways – the supposedly ‘quiet’ network of lesser-populated cycle routes – tend to be routed away from the capital’s main sites, and thus become dominated by ‘Charging Couriers’ and ‘Everyday Commuters’ (so not so quiet after all), while also excluding cyclists from key routes via city landmarks and tourist attractions which may also feel less safe.
Regardless of the number of new kilometres of cycle lanes that have been built, we argue that if they are built according to the same top-down, overly segregated approach to cycling infrastructure that isn’t sufficiently designed for its context or its users, then they will continue to have exclusionary traits, and serve only a few. Worse still, with an increasingly diverse number of societal groups now choosing to cycle, it is also an increasingly disproportionate few, and conflict sites between road users will continue to proliferate. We must therefore design in such a way that reduces the abruptness of these conflict points, or better still, eliminates them. Various developments must be commended for doing this; Tottenham Court Road now offers cyclists a network of safer streets rather than specific cycle lanes, and the temporary cycle wands installed in the City of London create safer journeys for cyclists and pedestrians without over formalising their separation from other road users, for example. The continued success of this transformation will be reliant on a tactical, human-centred, collaborative design process.
In some of our more recent, postpandemic projects on inclusivity and the public realm, we have collaborated with Lambeth London Borough Council to give school students an active design voice in the implementation of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood in Brixton. Following successful online teamwork, training and competition engagement, the site now has 50% less vehicle traffic, 50% more cycling, and has codesign at its core. We’re also currently working with Cross River Partnership on another research project focusing on highways and footways inclusivity and accessibility, which uses methodologies first developed in our ‘Sharing the Beautiful Everyday Journey’ cycling toolkit, and have recently received RIBA funding for another ongoing enquiry, ‘Spatial Justice’. Adding to our growing portfolio on social justice and the city, this project aims to understand the relationship between architecture, the built environment, climate crisis, and social inequality.
Examining a route through Hackney
© DSDHA
What all of this work shares is a common understanding that whether in relation to street design, mobility, social experience, climate, or pandemic, it is only through the prism of place-led intersectionality that spatial justice can be sought. By codesigning from a human perspective, not only do we give ourselves the potential to uncover inequities, but we also develop a design toolkit which provides an opportunity to redress them.
Whether for journeys by bike, or journeys through life, humancentred co-design will continue to navigate the way.
