Read this fascinating article from Building magazine’s archive on how urban design can be used to cut the numbers of children killed on our roads

Archive 16 March 1979

To zoom in and read the article in full click here or on the pdf below

Last month Building looked at how planners struggle to minimise the impact of cars in urban areas, and it seems the magazine has been reporting on people trying to tackle the same problem since the seventies.

In this Building archive article, which looks at a solution from the Netherlands, the reporter writes: “The fundamental fault in the present approach to residential design, according to the authors of the Woonerf idea, is the failure to realise that the most important activity in residential areas is the movement not of vehicles but of people”.

So it seems the Dutch were not just ahead of us in planning their flood protection measures, they also pioneered traffic calming in residential areas, prompting the writer at the time to praise them for “a Great Dutch Compromise”.

You can find other selections from the archive at www.building.co.uk/archive

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