Sustrans Scotland's Street Design program aims to improve streets through a community-led process. The program has completed 9 projects so far, engaging communities through public meetings, online platforms, and gathering input at all stages of design. Street Design uses a holistic approach to create concept designs that deliver infrastructure improvements and an engaged community. Projects are evaluated based on the quality of community engagement, the design process and iterations, and before/after data showing increased active travel and community cohesion.
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Notas del editor
Street Design
Partnership project with local authorities and organisations
Completed 9 community led projects to date
We focus not just on Active Travel but place making and community strengthening
We know from experience and detailed monitoring that spaces designed around people 1st have positive benefits for active travel and also our social & mental health
We look at the whole environment when starting out on a project
Paul
Street Design - What do you get?
1. Through our work we bring people together, creating connections and empowering people
2. Through an iterative process of design development we produce ambitious concept designs that;
make the most of an areas physical and social assets
Identify opportunities to incentivise active travel locally
create a more people centred distinctive spaces that people want to spend time and money in and travel through actively
Emily
Stakeholder mapping - identifying representative groups and key contacts and champions within the specific area using a matrix - Public sector duty under the 2010 Equality Act
Desk top study and observation to working out what’s happening in a project area
Pre works data qualitative and quantitative data collection to benchmark projects inc;
Counts of pedestrian
Cyclist movements
Recording of vehicle speed and volume counts
Retail vitality studies
Community Involvement is vital to the quality of the Street Design process. We draw on the community's knowledge to propose designs responsive to local needs, ensuring the changes we make leave a long lasting legacy within communities.
In order to do this, our approach to engagement is in line with the National Standards for Community Engagement and Planning Aid Scotland’s SP=EED process. We use a co-design approach:
Inform: two-way process of us informing the community and, most importantly, the community informing us of their knowledge and ideas.
Involve: bring ideas to life using a 3D models
Consult: month long process to receive formal feedback on design proposals
Partner: in depth collaboration on the handover from concept design to detailed design
It’s important to support the engagement process by using a mixture of communication methods (face to face, paper, online and local media) to publicise and gain support for projects. For Balloch, this included:
Utilising the National Park’s communication channels such as ‘LIVE Park’ social media accounts and website which already had a great reach within the community;
Invitations and project newsletters regularly delivered to over 600 households by Sustrans, Community Council and WDC Community Payback team;
Regular press releases were picked up in the local media;
On street design boards which were eye catching;
Information displayed at venues; and
Through the project website, Commonplace
Commonplace was the project website that we used for Balloch. This interactive engagement tool was used to inform the design process, along with feedback received at events; showcase the design proposals; and summarise the findings of each engagement stage.
This allowed for a much wider engagement including the young, digital savy and hard-to-reach audiences. Approximately 600 people were engaged during Session 1 and 2 with a further 1,400 engaged during the consultation and handover.
Users could pin point their ideas and suggestions for the project on an interactive map, view comments made by other users (anonymously) and get up to date news from the website.
Information Gathering:
Desktop research allows us to build up the big picture of an area.
Allows us to scope out an area to get a feel for how it works for people as a place to live in, to work in, spend time in and move through.
This involves going out onto site and observing a spectrum of behaviours falling under the two broader fields of ‘Place’ and ‘Movement’.
(e.g. desire lines, lingering locations and times, lighting, street furniture, prevalent aesthetics, parking behaviour, vehicle movement etc.)
And of course, as a result we get lots of information and loads and loads and LOADS of photos.
We then begin to break down this big picture into more manageable sections
From the research and information gathering, we are then able to develop and gather resources that we will then be able to use at the point of engagement with communities.
As a project progresses, more and more information becomes available. This means that presentation of this information evolves over the course of a project, ranging from newsletters, leaflets and tri-boards to communicate information; to 3D models, flythroughs and visualisations used to communicate our ideas both at a wider scale and at eye-level.
The greatest outputs of all this information, however, are ideas.
Developing Ideas:
This stage is how we transform our information into an interpretation.
Included within our new SD application process is the proviso that we are now going to be less likely to approach communities with an ‘open book’ approach to generating ideas. Rather, we will more likely come to a community after our research stage with ideas that we feel could work well in an area based on our experiences and knowledge of what has worked before in similar scenarios. This will allow us to streamline the initial stages of a project and able to fit projects within stricter timelines and to tighter budgets.
We utilise sessions like our model kit sessions to try and get people to communicate to us how they feel their streets and spaces can be designed and refined to work better for them day-to-day.
These ideas can be fairly straightforward, or a bit mad.
It is then our job to go back and use technical expertise to interpret how these designs would look on the ground and how they might functionally operate in reality.
As a project progresses, more and more information and ideas become available. This means that presentation of this information evolves over the course of a project, moving from maps and sketches to 3D models, flythroughs and visualisations used to communicate our ideas both at a wider scale and at eye-level.
Iterative Design
With our iterative design process, we will normally produce multiple iterations of a design, since this allows ideas to be mixed and matched by the community, as well as making the later stages of a project much quicker to refine
Our later engagement stages are focussed on refining these proposals developed from our research and community engagement and bringing them back to communities to get feedback on
We present our drawings to a community and use resources like feedback forms or even post-it notes to allow people to make comments.
As we are moving forward with SD, in the future we will only be delivering a project to concept design stage, meaning that our main task through our involvement is the generation of ideas with communities and formalising these on paper in order to hand it over to the council for detailed design.
Our final engagement event usually involves us presenting the final concept proposals and inviting people to comment on these, as the comments will be handed over to our partners for consideration in the detailed design stage.
Following this, a package of all materials is gathered by the team and assembled to form the handover package to our partners, which documents the journey undertaken to get a project to the detailed design stage.
Rowena
The area was severed from the town centre by an arterial one way road and from the rest of Dumfries by a busy feeder route up from the river. Not only did it need its infrastructure improved but also time and energy injected into encourage a community spirit back into the streets.
Public opinion
An urban setting, disparate neighbourhood with feelings of insecurity and poor social inclusion.
The community were keen to generate a more positive story for the area – create a slower, more people friendly neighbourhood by improving the streets, housing and building on the Victorian architecture
Social environment
Design and build project with a strong community involvement throughout.
Overall Aim
Therefore to create a safer more vibrant and attractive place to live, work and travel through.
Partners
Commenced May 2013; workshops+ activities; bring together + strengthen social connections
Household surveys and events showed
Achievements throughout the project
Victorian themed lighting to reflect the vernacular buildings
Street signs replaced to be bolder and clearer
Doorsteps – flowers and pots encouraged
Demonstrating different ways to showcase how the streetscape could change
The project has achieved:
New people friendly street layouts co-designed directly with residents and stakeholders.
20mph designations and fully accessible neighbourhood
New directional signage for walking cycling
Installation of on street planters and trees
Iconic gateway artworks and mural co-designed with artists and residents
New lighting columns, litter bins, street signage and notice board
A stronger more sociable community with spirit and a will to take ownership of their streets.
New Application process
1. We’ll be launching a new application process for Street Design in 2018
2. What makes a good project?
Issue to deal with
Space has the potential to change
Local support for changes
3. Key criteria
Applicant has land authority powers
Traffic generators within the project area
Urban focus
Support for 20mph designation
END PRESENTATION SLIDE: New Application process
You’ll be able to put forward an application for Street Design in January 2018
Likely to be able to support 2 projects per year initially
Online applications will be possible from mid January 2018 for six weeks.
Project partners will need to be able to demonstrate how they can match fund our time and resource commitment
You can find more information by visiting the Street Design webpage or by picking up one of our leaflets