It's easy to become disillusioned where life and events aren't always under your control. At times like these, it can be good to have a little project running which you can control.
I have been working on a project to map the physical barriers to walking and cycling in my area with a longer term aim of taking the local authorities and managers/ owner of public land to task over their lack of accessibility. The audit of barriers has been developed partly from memory, partly from scouting and partly from suggestions from local campaigners.
Such an endeavour has to be kept simple because it's essentially a piece of voluntary work and such things can soon take over (leading to disillusionment). So, with that in mind, I have been working with Google My Maps to record the issues - view the Havering Barriers Map here.
As you can see, there are some very simple categories;
- Step-over barriers
- A-barriers
- No dropped kerbs
- Narrow gates
- Kissing gates
- Fire gates
- Awkward bollards
- Blocked by parking
- Good examples
The last item is important because it allows people to see real life examples of how things should be done (even if they are a bit rough and ready) and in the round, I have probably picked the key types of problems; or at least the ones which should be fairly simple to deal with on a technical level.
Collating this information will help to support a joint campaign of Havering Cyclists and Better Streets for Havering to get these problems tackled. Of course, owners of these barriers really should be undertaking their own audits because as custodians of highways and public land, they have a Public Sector Equality Duty (arising from the Equality Act 2010). At the practical level, this involves getting rid of barriers to people with protected characteristics and what is good for one group is always better for everyone else.
Of course, public bodies often don't have proper inventories of the "things" they own and less have audited them for their fitness for purpose. Therefore, being able to present a land owner/ manager with the location and description of the issue removes any debate of ignorance (not that it would be a good legal defence if it came to it).
There isn't a live campaign just yet, but I took the opportunity to raise the lack of dropped kerb at a retail park access. An annoyance for me with my folding bike, but dangerous for those not expecting it and impossible for some people to pass at all. The response so far has been less than impressive;
We are still constrained by the ongoing funding situation and future budgets remain unclear at the current time which makes forward planning difficult. However, we will look to investigate options for making improvements at this location subject to funding availability.
Well, that's fine and all, but that's certainly not a response to send someone with a protected characteristic - not something I can take further under the Equality Act myself, but an initial toe in the water for the forthcoming campaign. That may well be where disillusion raises its head again, but for now, there is something local, tangible and under my control to push on with.
Sustrans have got Volunteer rangers out on the network doing a barrier audit via an App Survey 123 from ArcGIS. Hatfield has two barriers with a 20cm gap for cycles on a now disqualified section of NCN12. The aim is a much more complete survey than the one in 2015 with images and measurements so that they can evolve a route planning tool which will highlight barriers for families and disabled riders. I wonder if local councils could consider the same thing working with local cycle groups? It would not be hard for WelHatCycling to do our towns, for example, but we'd need a comitment to funding to remove the worst problems to ensure we weren't greenwashing.
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