Evaluating the English Home Zone Initiatives

Mike Biddulph

Journal of the American Planning Association, 2010, vol. 76, issue 2, 199-218

Abstract: Problem : What lessons on street design can professional planners take from recent English home zone initiatives? Purpose : This article is a comparative evaluation of English home zones , or streets shared by vehicles and pedestrians based on the Dutch woonerf concept. This approach to street design is intended to improve livability. Methods : I used monitoring data on 14 home zone projects to draw generalizable lessons from the initiatives. Results and conclusions : Although the concept of the home zone has not been fully implemented in all cases, these projects exhibited lower traffic speeds and continued low or reduced numbers of traffic accidents compared to conditions before the home zones were implemented, and residents report that they now feel their streets are safer for their children. Residents also report finding the home zone streets to be more attractive than they were previously, and some of those in high crime areas experienced reduced levels of crime and antisocial behavior, although these results were not obtained everywhere. Evidence that the treatments resulted in more socializing among adults is less convincing. In general the projects are very well received by residents, demonstrating that this approach to street design improves livability. However, the evidence suggests that similar effects might be realized with less comprehensive and expensive solutions. Takeaway for practice : The introduction of home zone design qualities has contributed to improved livability in established residential streets. Research support: None.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01944361003622688 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjpaxx:v:76:y:2010:i:2:p:199-218

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjpa20

DOI: 10.1080/01944361003622688

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the American Planning Association is currently edited by Sandi Rosenbloom

More articles in Journal of the American Planning Association from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().