THE WATCH WORD.
The City of London – where mobility should only ever be a part of the equation
Great cities will never come from the interventions of a single, abstract profession. Only through inter-disciplinary working can we understand and design them for the people who live in them. As a Civil Engineer, in its broadest sense of the term, through the practical application of the sciences I strive to improve the environment in which we live. My focus is on making great streets and spaces with people who share my passion, but not necessarily my training or my way of thinking.
In the past we have chosen to breakdown the challenge of improving our cities by each of the built environment professions. Each one of these has considered how they can best meet the challenge of improving our cities with their own particular skill set and then laboured away, safe in the knowledge that they must be doing ‘a good thing’.
Each of the built environment professions clearly has something important to offer to the challenge of creating great cities. But the problem is rarely a lack of understanding regarding their own expertise. More often than not it is a lack of understanding about how their skills fit within the range of skills needed to create great cities and when to call on the assistance of other disciplines.
For the traffic engineers and transport planners the watch word is MOBILITY. This is their contribution to improving our quality of life. Their belief is that we can never have enough access to jobs and to services. It’s critical to making the economy tick and maximising people’s opportunities.
The working assumption for traffic engineers and transport planners is that if they strive towards achieving their specific objective then they will, ultimately, be improving the city as a whole. In practice it doesn’t take long to realise that the pursuit of this objective can not only conflict with the objectives of other built environment professions, but that it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. There quickly becomes a point where the outcome of providing greater mobility is counter-productive and no-longer in a city’s overall best interest. This is just one example of how, too often, the ultimate aim shared by all built environment professions is forgotten, replaced with the simpler, more colloquial aims of each discipline.
In the past we have chosen to breakdown the challenge of improving our cities by each of the built environment professions. Each one of these has considered how they can best meet the challenge of improving our cities with their own particular skill set and then laboured away, safe in the knowledge that they must be doing ‘a good thing’.
Each of the built environment professions clearly has something important to offer to the challenge of creating great cities. But the problem is rarely a lack of understanding regarding their own expertise. More often than not it is a lack of understanding about how their skills fit within the range of skills needed to create great cities and when to call on the assistance of other disciplines.
For the traffic engineers and transport planners the watch word is MOBILITY. This is their contribution to improving our quality of life. Their belief is that we can never have enough access to jobs and to services. It’s critical to making the economy tick and maximising people’s opportunities.
The working assumption for traffic engineers and transport planners is that if they strive towards achieving their specific objective then they will, ultimately, be improving the city as a whole. In practice it doesn’t take long to realise that the pursuit of this objective can not only conflict with the objectives of other built environment professions, but that it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. There quickly becomes a point where the outcome of providing greater mobility is counter-productive and no-longer in a city’s overall best interest. This is just one example of how, too often, the ultimate aim shared by all built environment professions is forgotten, replaced with the simpler, more colloquial aims of each discipline.
