Pedways: pedestrian paradise or ponderous paths?

Streets Ahead

Ned and Laura go exploring on foot with Alderman Alison Gowman around the City of London's mid-century raised walkways. Known as Pedways, when they were conceived and built in the 1960s, their architects believed they would be the future of the urban pedestrian experience... except they didn't quite work. More than half a century later, many of them are slightly bleak and under-used spaces, because they failed to meet the needs of pedestrians who, it turns out, will stubbornly take the easiest route.

Streets Ahead wanders around the remains of the City of London's Roman walls to find out why a quirk of 1960's public realm design became a dead-end in pedestrian provision...almost. Come along for a journey through the good, the bad and the ugly of the intermittent trend of "getting people out of the way of cars" - and a new, improved addition to the Pedways that nods to the future.

Alderman Alison Gowman is the elected official for the City of London's Dowgate Ward. She is the chair of the London Road Safety Council and author of a book The City of London: Who, What, Why? https://shop.cityoflondon.gov.uk/products/the-city-of-london-who-what-why

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Episode edited by Clare Mansell

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