The design of driveways and their impact on footways is often forgotten in street design. That’s because not many people realise that crossing over driveways and roadways at side streets to continue a journey is part of a footway. Consequently, the design of continuous footways has a role to play in creating walkable neighbourhoods.
Living Streets is a UK based charity focused on safe and accessible walking and wheeling. As part of a major project to encourage walking they have produced a report on inclusive design and continuous footways.
The research project included a literature review, GIS mapping, working with professionals, working with people with disability, which led to detailed site work. The issues raised in this project are likely to be similar in other jurisdictions.
Key conclusions are:
- There’s confusion over what constitutes a continuous footway, their design, and what their use aims to achieve
- Many designs being called continuous footways in Britain do not convincingly continue the footway
- Most of the designs called continuous footways in Britain do not provide high levels of pedestrian priority
- The use of these designs can create problems not just for some disabled people, but for a wider group
- Where there are fewer vehicles travelling at lower speeds, it’s easier to establish pedestrian priority
- What we call “real” continuous footways might be more effective in prioritising pedestrians
Many pedestrians find crossing over delivery driveways and car parking driveways unsafe. This is largely due to drivers and pedestrians not knowing who has the right of way.
Design issues
Researchers found that some designers wanted to design for maximum pedestrian safety, but were forced to compromise by “highway engineers”. People who are blind or have low vision are particularly impacted where the footway is not clearly delineated by kerbs or clear transitions. This results in that journeys not made when pedestrians feel unsafe.
Design factors having potential significance for pedestrians are:
- Continuity of main carriageway kerb
- Lack of visible (kerb) radii at the main carriageway
- Continuity of markings (white line)
- Height different and ramp design
- Visual continuity of materials and colour of footway
- Contrast between footway and carriageway colour
Findings from the study
Overall there was a broad failure to prioritise pedestrians at all study sites even where designers were aiming to prioritise pedestrians. Failure to reduce vehicle speeds and use visual cues so that drivers know when they are crossing a footway were two findings.
The title of the Living Streets report is, Inclusive design at continuous footways. There is a separate document of appendices that has many illustrations. The Living Streets website has more about the project and links to further documents.
Living Streets: Literature Review
Living Streets has an additional literature review on continuous footways which is part of the Inclusive Design at Bus Stops and Continuous Footways project. The overall project is to investigate issues for both continuous footways and cycle tracks at bus stops.
One of the findings is that guidance documents suggest benefits for either pedestrians or cyclists but not both. The broader Living Streets project is investigating whether continuous footways can improve the inclusivity of streets. Continuous footways can include raised crossings which gives a physical signal to drivers and cyclists that pedestrians have priority. However, people who are blind or have low vision require consistent application of tactile ground indicators to make this work for everyone.
This is a thorough review of the literature with more to come. You might need to sign up to Living Streets to access their free material.