Focus of work
The annual Healthy Streets Scorecard helps London boroughs compare how well they are doing in relation to five key input indicators, enabling them to identify areas for future action in the short, medium and longer term. The Scorecard is the work of a coalition of eight transport, health, road safety and environmental campaign groups.
The Scorecard shows to what extent London boroughs are putting in place five key indicators:
- Borough-wide low traffic neighbourhoods
- A default 20mph speed limit on all borough and Transport for London controlled roads
- Borough-wide controlled parking zones
- Protected cycle lanes on main roads
- Traffic-free streets around all schools and safe walking and cycling routes to school.
It also sets out data to show the health of each borough’s streets – referred to as outcome indicators. By combining the scores for the nine indicators, each borough is given a final Healthy Streets score, allowing councils and residents to compare how well their borough is doing in relation to others and identify areas for action.
Impact
Since the start of the project, major improvements have been seen across all of the five input indicators as boroughs, local residents and campaigners have been able to see clearly how they perform in relation to neighbouring boroughs. In many cases, council bosses have taken bold action to reduce traffic and create streets that encourage active travel.
The Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition has been instrumental in making Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets common parlance, have put the urgent need for more Controlled Parking Zones firmly on the map, and have won the respect of councillors across London from all parties. It has successfully demonstrated that five simple, affordable changes can deliver a whole range of vital benefits – eliminating road casualties, getting people active, dramatically reducing carbon emissions and delivering a more tranquil urban environment.