Fairisle Child-Friendly Streets
On World Car Free Day, students of Fairisle School, their parents/carers and residents of the local area worked together with Sustrans to design interventions to make the street more child-friendly and reduce problems caused by school-run traffic.
Context
Fairisle suffers regular conflict between residents and parents who park across driveways, on footpaths and verges in order to park close to the school gates. Congestion during the school-run means poor visibility when crossing the road so parents are reluctant to let their children walk or cycle to school. There is a “Park & Stride” 5 minutes’ walk away but it sees little use.
Transformational Measures and Activities
Children and adults discussed the issues and agreed how the street could be used in a different way. The street was then closed for an afternoon to test out the designs including new crossings and activity trails.
Results
The event encouraged positive conversations between the school, parents/carers and residents and co-designing the new street design allowed all affected parties to have an input.
Of the 340 people that took part:
95% thought the designs would make the street more attractive
85% thought the designs would improve road safety
74% felt the designs would encourage more use of Park & Stride
Challenges, Opportunities and Transferability
The designs will be used by Southampton City Council, as and when funding becomes available for implementation.
In Depth
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 723375