Appendix 1: The environmental capacity of streets

Cornwall Street, Plymouth

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We were especially interested in this case because it is a central shopping street in one of the major bombed-city reconstructions. We studied the length lying to the west of Armada Way. The carriageway is 30 ft. wide, and the footways 22 ft. each. On the north side of the street there are 46 shops, some with flats and some with office and storage above. On the south are forty shops, including Woolworths, with the retail market behind. There are no street intersections in this length, but there are three entrances to service areas on the south and one on the north. The street pattern is designed to discourage through traffic, which uses a main distributor road to the west of the central area. Traffic is two-way, with unilateral parking, the maximum parking time being 30 minutes in any one hour. There are no pedestrian crossings. (Figure 5)

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At noon on a weekday vehicles were passing (in both directions) at the rate of 700 p.c.u. per hour. About 12% were commercial, and there was a constant movement in and out of the service areas. Some commercial vehicles, however, stopped in Cornwall Street itself to be loaded and unloaded through the front entrances of shops. Parking facilities in the street were fully taken up and there was a constant turn-over of vehicles. Long term parking by those working in shops and offices takes place in the servicing areas. Vehicle speeds ranged up to 25 m.p.h. Pedestrians crossed at the rate of about 2,500 per hour. These crossings were random over the length and do not include any north-south movements along Armada Way. This represents a great deal of pedestrian activity.

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It can be said of Cornwall Street that accessibility for vehicular traffic is fairly good, though some congestion arises from the reluctance of some drivers of commercial vehicles to use the service areas, and from cars cruising around in the hope of finding a short-term parking space by the kerb. But from the point of view of pedestrians the conditions appear far from satisfactory. The scene is one of confusion for most of the time, with a mixture of moving vehicles and crossing pedestrians. Persons wishing to cross first have to face the hazard of passing through the line of parked vehicles along the kerb, and then they have to dodge the moving traffic. The risks are increased by the occasional vehicle passing along the street at excessive speed.

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We cannot avoid the conclusion (and it seems to apply to much of the other work in the bombed-city reconstructions) that the design has not, in the event, turned out for the best. Were it possible to start afresh there seems no doubt that much greater regard would be paid to pedestrian movement, and a different kind of design would emerge as a consequence.