Footway Parking Fail: Redux

This blog has been running a while and so I sometimes forget what I have written. This week I recounted a footway parking story on Twitter which I thought I had explained before, but it was actually a post from 2013!

Anyhow, I think this kind of thing is sufficiently important to come back at again and offer some more thoughts on footway parking. My basic starting position is I think that footway parking should be banned. In reaction to that position I often get a stream of whataboutism and reasons special cases need to be made, but I have heard it all and I don't care.

The big problem is that we have tolerated this obstructive behaviour for so long, it is going to be difficult to roll back, especially in the way spatial development has locked many people into auto-dependency.

Above is a snap I took this morning on the A12 Eastern Avenue. I don't know if this exact location had one, but there were certainly cycle tracks on the Eastern Avenue in the 1930s, but these days, the front gardens are paved for car parking and a wide strip of footway (and maybe former cycle track) is also given over to car parking. From a walking point of view, it really is a tiring and desolate trudge. Nothing to see or do, nowhere to rest and no shade. Does the footway parking add to this desolation? Well maybe, maybe not, but it certainly adds nothing to the street.

Above, is the photograph I used in my Twitter thread. The space left for walking, even if people had parked within the bays is minimal - certainly not wide enough for side by side walking. The Eastern Avenue example would at least let you chat (shout) with someone as you walked along which would take your mind off the monotony!

My two examples are from London where footway parking has been regulated for decades, although some boroughs don't seem to bother marking bays as they should, and some ignore the footway parking going on in back streets (as lack of enforcement would suggest). Some even have local exemptions for streets where nobody wants to grasp the nettle. Most of the UK doesn't have regulation and so it is a postcode lottery as to whether enforcement takes place.

Now you can get into the technical about footway width (and I often do). Inclusive Mobility (recently updated) tells us that footways should usually be 2 metres wide, 1.5 metres as a minimum and 1 metre for a distance of no more than 6 metres. The 1 metre "rule" is for where there might be a single piece of clutter like a telecommunications cabinet. The problem comes where there are regular obstructions as they sterilise a strip of footway.

The image above shows what I mean. The red strip is sterilised leaving an effective width of buff area. The green area is a local narrowing caused by a telecommunications cabinet. You can also undertake comfort analysis based on pedestrian flow and available width, but that's probably more about busy places anyway and my main beef is ordinary every day streets along which walking has been relegated to sometime to squeeze in.

With footway parking, whether regulated or unregulated, we are often left with the situation that a 2 metre effective width isn't provided (I prefer to use the effective width as that is the space in use for walking). Some local authorities, police departments and the public think that leaving enough space for someone to get by (in single file) is enough.

The street above is in an older part of Cambridge where footway parking has been marked (both sides) to give enough space to get other motors through. The walking experience here has people wedged against the buildings on one side and cars on the other. There is no space for side by side walking here - you cannot hold a conversation with a friend because you are forced into single file.

My Twitter thread got interest (I think) because the residents of the street seemed to put their every day "need" to park their cars above the far off and potentially remote possibly of needed to be rescued from a fire. It's interesting to me because very few people focused on the actual every day space left for people to walk along. This might partly be down to my fire brigade punchline and partly because we have become so accustomed to footways cluttered with cars.

It is hard to see where we go from here. In England, some organisations want to see rules around footway parking which allows and regulates it. The RAC thinks it's too complex an issue for a ban and one wheel up might be fine. Guide Dogs prefers to see a London-style arrangement which would allow it on a case by case basis, but as I have explained, London is very hit and miss in how it is applied.

As I said earlier I prefer complete ban because it is a simple rule to understand and very easy to enforce. If there isn't space to park, then you can't. My worry with a regulated approach is we have a government which doesn't like red tape or burdening the driver and a London-style approach simply means the highway authority would pass a resolution rather than actually having to public a traffic order that is open to objection and challenge. In addition, if guidance is issued, it would probably end up being consistent with Inclusive Mobility where minimums will naturally be attractive to councils and designers. 

Scotland is currently behind its footway parking ban which has already been watered down with exemptions. Wales is probably closer with a ban later this year, but again there will be exemptions. In Northern Ireland, the matter is currently being thought about and in England, there doesn't seem to have been much happening since October 2020 after options were consulted on (none of which were for an outright ban).

So there you have it. Footway parking is widely recognised as a problem. National governments are at different stages of looking at it, but the solutions either make it more complicated or waters it down. Why can't we tackle the problem?