<
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-14/britain-s-bike-friendliest-new-town-is-a-model-for-car-free-living>
"You could be forgiven for thinking you were in the Netherlands when you enter
Waterbeach. A 716-acre lakeside development being built on a former RAF base
outside the UK city of Cambridge, the new town is rising on wetlands that were
reclaimed by Dutch engineers in the 1600s. And like many places in Holland,
Waterbeach’s design and planning puts people before cars.
Cycle lanes, protected with strips of plantings, thread through the complex,
while residential streets are access-only for cars, which must pass over raised
crosswalks on the few through-routes. Bike sheds flank the entrances to homes,
with residents’ cars relegated to parking spots behind houses. Students will be
expected to walk, wheel or cycle to the neighborhood’s primary school; only
staff, who are likely to live farther away, and those with disabilities can
drive in or do car drop-offs.
The handful of residents who have already moved in to the under-construction
town will soon find social “activation” projects that further encourage active
transportation in their daily routines — there will be social walking groups,
bike hire programs and bike safety sessions, along with a monthly cycle repair
workshop once a month.
It’s far from business-as-usual in British urbanism, as Rebecca Britton, a
spokesperson for Waterbeach developers Urban&Civic, makes clear.
“There was an opportunity to design the interior of Waterbeach in a different
way, to continue that cycle-first approach from doorstep through to workplace,”
she told
Bloomberg CityLab. “We had a chance to do something that was a
little bit different, and really try and make sure those cycle links were in
from the beginning.”
New residential developments that deprioritize automobile ownership are
spreading in the US as well; it’s a trend that aligns with global efforts to
reduce transportation-related carbon emissions. But building a car-light town
from scratch isn’t easy. Waterbeach’s bike-friendly character came about thanks
to a catalogue of specifically local conditions: a location next to a city with
a strong cycling culture, a road system that was already full to capacity, an
unusually bike-positive local council and a public property owner prepared to
partner with a more sustainable developer — plus a highly organized local
campaign for better biking facilities."
Via David Byrne at
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-genetic-milestone-yellowstone-bison/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
