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‘Tame’ wide British roads and replace them with boulevards of homes, says thinktank
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Needlessly wide roads should be torn up and replaced with boulevards of new housing, a thinktank led by the UK government’s most senior urbanism adviser has proposed, in a move likely to delight green belt campaigners but rile the motoring lobby.
Both initiatives have become lightning rods for wider political debates about personal freedom, inequality and, in some cases, conspiracy theories about shadowy forces attempting to control the population.
Steve Gooding, the director of the pro-motoring thinktank the RAC Foundation, said narrowing roads would require planners to decide which traffic they no longer wanted.
“Grand visions need to be backed up by meticulous planning and adequate funding if they are to be turned into a livable reality where our shops are well-stocked, our kids can get to school, and our home deliveries arrive when we expect them,” he said.
He conceded that increasing the number of 20mph zones meant sweeping junctions and large roundabouts designed decades ago for higher speeds could be revisited, but “it remains to be seen whether linking that with housing development unlocks the scale of investment that’s currently beyond the reach of our cash-strapped local councils”.
A scheme involving Rochdale council is exploring removing a turning lane from a four-lane urban highway at St Mary’s Gate in the north of the town, allowing designers to create a corner block, and adding 400 homes.
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