Coming to a bookshop near you soon! Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the book shops, here comes #NoFreeParking The paperback! Obviously please tell all your friends and family to buy 10 each😉 https://t.co/UkKSlP35h2

This is a great thread. I truly wish we could have a sensible conversation about how we move around especially in cities.

This is a recently completed British train station. It is pathetic, value engineered to a level of comatose ugliness that dispirits & dulls the mind, dissuading passengers & degrading the trains that run through it. It is not civic or sociable architecture....

What a lovely example. More exquisite Gentle Density from La belle 🇫🇷

Street Fight. When the chips are down, whose side are you on? We help councils keep the chips up !

@createstreets … you can read FAR more about this with lots & lots & lots of lovely footnotes in our report Move Free here ! Enjoy. Thanks for reading. https://t.co/hdvCB2ef2T

@createstreets .. to conclude, Don’t hate cars. Don’t wage a war against motorists. But don’t wage a war for them either. Instead fight the battle for place & for happy & healthy, prosperous & productive neighbourhoods. All the evidence suggests that voters will thank you. If you want to …

@createstreets … move about in other ways than the car if they wish to because it is more convenient, enjoyable and cheaper. If you like, we at @createstreets Streets can help you and … https://t.co/Wg6xtGvWoX

We at @createstreets have worked on many street design codes which seem to have been widely accepted because we are respectful of reality whist also being ambitiously hopeful for future. Work to create urban streets & squares where people can naturally… https://t.co/LC1tGrrril

Look at the facts & the data in your local town already. In an historic English market town I visited the most prosperous street without any empty shops was one with most street trees & the tightest most speed-constraining carriage way. Cars were present but they were guests….

… Experiment with pedestrianising or part-pedestrianising streets on a Sunday. Often, local shop takings will rise. Clearly this does mean recognising that what is possible in areas of high public transport is very different from what you can do where not https://t.co/V3bQtbKxRr

Create continuous (so called Copenhagen) crossings as encouraged wisely in Surrey .. https://t.co/2KDTUkfWIL

You should therefore find gradualist “win-win” processes for improving places with the consent, even with the active leadership, of local neighbourhoods. This can be done. Plant street trees…. https://t.co/N9CAHk3Q2K

… the wider evidence suggests this will be rare). You can hardly blame inconvenienced drivers & worried shopkeepers for kicking up a fuss. And, as Edmund Burke once observed, in the field of politics angry grasshoppers make far more sound than contented cattle, chewing the cud…

And think about place not just about movement. Removing or constraining an existing right to drive down a given street will certainly inconvenience some & may (though less frequently) be a problem for specific shops particularly reliant on car driven trade (even if …

My advice for my friends who run councils or work for them or who work in government or for developers and investors would boil down to this: create opportunities before you curtail them.  Add choice and let people decide with their hearts and heads.

By liberating other ways to get about, they actually make it easier to drive for those who still wish or need to. Everyone wins. This is why I remain very confident that the logic & the joy, of villages, towns & cities with more choice about how we get about will win in the end..

The trick is to move the debate from cars to choice. And place. Undoubtedly the most successful (and sustainable) urban places make it easy, safe, joyful and affordable to move around by train or tram, bus or bicycle, on foot as well as on wheels… https://t.co/KPusbXPISZ

I fear those unhappy about apparent politicisation of this issue are being naive. How we move about, what it costs & who can tell us where to go or not go are legitimately matters of public interest & political debate.  You need to win the argument, not complain it’s being waged

So, life is complicated. Cars are great. Cars are awful. Cars can boost liberty. Cars can destroy it. Cars can help economy. Cars can undermine it. It’s largely a question of where. They add most value in areas of lowest density. They do most harm in areas of higher density…

This was perennial London experience until 1960s when all of city could be a playground & a place to move about. It’s a pattern researchers have discovered more broadly: the ‘range’ of children’s unaccompanied right to roam has collapsed over 3 generations https://t.co/vcjLFWljzH