Future Streets – Visioning with Children

Maria O’Sullivan1, Rita Newton1, Jemma Bowmaker1, Marcus Ormerod1,

Niamh Moore2

1 SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre, University of Salford

3 Centre for Research of Socio-Cultural Change, University of Manchester

ABSTRACT

The children of today are tomorrow’s decision makers so the potential to elicit their views on matters of
inclusivity and sustainability and, in particular, sustainable transport, are paramount. Moreover, the
environmental harm that is inflicted today could ultimately affect their quality of life in the future. This paper
reports on three activity sessions with children. The aim of the sessions was to explore how the children got
to school, their perceptions of walking, cycling and car use, and their visions for alternative travel futures in
2030. The key product from the sessions was drawings by the children and a range of innovative prompts
was used to stimulate creativity with the drawings. These prompts included the Travel Stations game, a
Snakes and Ladders game with cubes showing environmental barriers and enablers, and a Dr Who Tardis, all
of which are described and illustrated in the paper.
The results are currently being analysed but initial findings show that walking and cycling rates amongst the
8-10 year olds in the study are largely determined by their parents’ working habits and perceptions of fear,
i.e. ‘stranger danger’ and road safety. Distance from home to school was also a contributing factor. The
children’s visions for travel in 2030 suggest that most travel will be undertaken within the sky, examples
being flying hummers, jet packs, and submarines that fly. Also interestingly we might get to school in 2030
by floating with gravity, or flying on a butterfly. More practical visions included a separate road for cyclists,
and having no cars because they are dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.
This research is part of a 3 year collaborative project of the Universities of East Anglia Leeds, Manchester,
Oxford and Salford studying sustainable travel in 2030. The research is funded by the UK Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council. Further information is available at www.visions2030.org.uk

Keywords

Children; Cycling; Inclusion; Participation; Sustainable Travel; Visioning; Walking.

BACKGROUND TO THE VISIONS 2030 PROJECT

Visions 2030 is a collaborative project using visioning and backcasting techniques to explore sustainable
transport futures – particularly walking and cycling in 2030. Such techniques are particularly appropriate to
walking and cycling as they provide a means by which it will be possible to consider situations and futures
which are fundamentally different to those which exist now and which involve significant diversion from
current trends or small scale incremental change. To date there have been relatively few studies which have
applied such techniques in the transport field and none which have specifically focussed on walking and
cycling. Research such as the Rees Jeffreys Futures project (Tight et al, 2000), the OECD Environmentally
Sustainable Transport project (OECD, 2002) and the EU funded POSSUM project (Banister et al, 2000) have
considered all aspects of transport, while more recently VIBAT (Hickman and Banister, 2007) has focused
particularly on Carbon emissions and transport, whilst the work of the UK Highways Agency Transport
Visions project (www.transportvisions.org.uk) was mostly concerned with motorway and trunk road
networks. Similarly, the various UK Government Foresight reports (www.foresight.gov.uk) have tended to be
very technology led.

The visioning process lends itself very well to the development of narratives and storylines, which is the
approach being undertaken in this study. Our use of narrative and storylines is particularly appropriate for
visioning processes as people commonly use / tell stories to try and imagine the future / uncertainty / the
unknown. Offering people a tool that uses familiar methods which enables them to construct their own
versions of the future, and to weave their own stories in and out of expert visions, thus opens up the
possibility of a richer and expanded public engagement with the visioning process. This permits a shift from
the narrow focus of people’s current day decision-making and behavioural and lifestyle choices to a greater
focus on the process through which people make decisions and the contextual factors which inform how
people choose to live their everyday lives. The value of this project, and the innovative methodologies it
adopts, is that in this way it opens up the possibilities of a greater understanding of how walking and cycling
could change the future.

This paper reports on a small part of the Visions Project which is focussing on children under the age of 11
years. We are interested in their current travel habits and how they imagine travel might evolve in the future.
Sometimes visioning can lead to poor results because people ‘can’t want what they don’t know’ (Dobson
2010), the great advantage with children is that they have the creativity and imagination to potentially
surprise us with both their understanding of current travel issues, and with their creative ideas for the future.

WALKING AND CYCLING IN THE UK

Walking is the most ubiquitous form of movement, open to almost everybody. Walking constitutes the
majority of trips for non-car owners, women and children and as a non-motorised way of transport, walking,
like cycling, involves no direct expenditure on fuel (Barton 1998). Walking is also the most important mode
in terms of number of trips or part-trips (though not of course distance) as many motorised trips involve a
walk at one end. Nearly a quarter of all our trips are one mile or less – a generally walkable distance, and
42% are within two miles – less than the average length of a cycling trip. (DfT 2009). However, the amount
of walking in UK has declined over the long term from 35% of all trips in 1975/76 to 24% in 2006 (DfT,
2007). Similarly between 1995/7 and 2006 the number of trips per person made by cycle fell by 20% (DfT,
2007).

Within the context of children, a ‘car dependent culture’ affects not only children’s long term development of
independence and their ability to map out their environment mentally but reduces the chance of regular
physical activity and also constrains adult opportunities, changes travel patterns and contributes to traffic
congestion and pollution (DfT, 2008). According to Cycling England (2010), children participation in
cycling has declined by 50% over the past generation, as parents and schools have withdrawn from the road,
‘more than three quarters of parents now ban their children from cycling independently, or limit their routes
to such a degree that they have become kids restricted to circuits of their immediate roads or neighbourhood
streets’. (Cycling England 2010).

One knock-on effect of the increase in car use is the ‘school run’. UK data shows that in 1985 22% of 5-10
year olds were driven to school, by 1998 this increased to 36% (Cavill and Davies 2003). By 2006, this had
increased to 41% (DfT 2007). Cycling to school has recently increased to 2% (Sustrans 2010 Bike it), but
this compares poorly with the Netherlands and Denmark where cycling accounts for 50% of journeys to
school. Among children aged 11 to 16, 41% of trips to school were made on foot, 31% were made by bus and
20% were made by car in 2006. Cycling accounted for a further 3% of trips (NTS, 2006). According to the
European Network for Cycling Expertise (2010), in many European countries, car use on the school journey
has been increasing for the following reasons:

1. Increased car ownership (including more cars per household) leading to increased car use;
2. An increased number of families in which both parents work, and an increase in the number of
working single mothers, means that children are brought to school by a parent on the way to his or her
work;
3. Greater distances to schools;
4. The ease and comfort offered by the car for transporting both children and goods;
5. The low status of the bike, compared to that of the car;
6. Ever-increasing car traffic meaning less safe roads to school (Zomervrucht et al, as cited by the
European Network for Cycling Expertise (2000).
BARRIERS TO WALKING AND CYCLING

Research carried out in six cities across Europe (ASTUTE Advancing Sustainable Transport in Urban Areas
to Promote Energy Efficiency 2008) identified ten principal barriers and 44 sub barriers which impede
progress in increasing walking and cycling, The project focussed on behavioural change through the use
of 'soft measures' such as education, training and publicity. A summary of the barriers is illustrated below.

Figure 1 Barriers to walking and cycling (ASTUTE 2008)

Within the context of children, according to the last UK Census in 2001, there are 11.9 million children
under the age of 16 accounting for the 20% of the total population (NSO, 2010), yet children have
‘increasingly disappeared from the urban scene’ during the last four decades due to parent’s concerns about
traffic safety, fears of stranger danger and increasing distances (Francis and Lorenzo 2006), the dominance of
automotive vehicles, the growth of population and pollution (Rivkin 2006) .If we consider parents views on
barriers then we find that in 2006 85% of children aged 7 to 10 years were usually accompanied to school by
an adult. The main reasons were traffic danger (59%) and fear of assault or molestation (36%). This changes
slightly as children get older with 31% of children aged 11 to 13 years usually accompanied to school by an
adult in 2006. The main reasons being convenience (35%), traffic danger (32%), fear of assault or
molestation (25%) and the school being too far away (25%) (National Travel Survey 2006).

SEDENTARY LIFESTYLES AND EFFECTS

As a result of these barriers (either perceived or real), most of children’s time is spent in ‘institutionalized’
settings such as home, school and recreational institutions (Appleyard 1981, Kampmann, 2004, Rivkin
2006)) and the lives of children today are much more structured and supervised by adults. Compared to forty
years ago, today’s children’s physical boundaries have shrunk considerably. This creates a vicious circle
(Osborne 2000 as cited by The European Network for Cycling Expertise 2010) because as children are
increasingly transported by car, traffic danger increases, conditions for cycling or walking (e.g. to school) are
made increasingly unpleasant and fewer children therefore walk or cycle to school. This serves again to
discourage cycling and leads to greater car use which provokes parents into further thinking that roads are
too dangerous. It also means that primary school children have limited road safety awareness and are
therefore more vulnerable when they travel to secondary school independently and this is supported by an
observed increase in pedestrian casualties (Living Streets 2008, London Councils 2008).
We also need to consider the effects of this increased sedentary lifestyle of children on their health and
wellbeing. We know that travel habits are often formed in early life and that children who cycle at a young
age often continue into adulthood. (London Councils 2008, Osborne, 2000 cited by The European Network
for Cycling Expertise 2010, Sustrans, 2001 cited by The European Network for Cycling Expertise). Within
the adult population research shows that appropriate levels of physical activity as could be achieved with
moderate levels of walking or cycling are linked to prevention of a range of chronic diseases and mental
health issues (DfT 2009, Sustrans 2010 – the health benefits of WAC). The House of Commons Select
Committee on Health (2004) suggests that “providing safe routes to school for walking and cycling, adequate
and safe play areas in and out of school is very important in the battle against [childhood] obesity”. Sustrans
(2010 – the health benefits of WAC) suggests that as most school journeys are an easily manageable distance
of less than 2 miles, the school journey is “an ideal way for both parents and young people to become more
active”.

A further effect of increasing car use is that road transport contributes to about 70% of the air pollution in
UK towns and cities. (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 2009). Evidence from the
Department of Health (1998) suggests air pollution is responsible for 14-24,000 hospital admissions each
year and the premature deaths of between 12-24,000 vulnerable people” (Cycling England, 2007). Traffic
pollution damages bio-diversity, local climate and degrades the built environment, but its greatest impact is
on health (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 2009).

DESIGNING EXTERNAL SPACES TO ENCOURAGE WALKING AND CYCLING

The design of the urban environment is important in determining the extent to which people and especially
children engage in activities within the neighbourhood context. Streets make up about 80% of our urban
public spaces (CABE 2010). We know that in the context of residential environments a range of built
environment attributes are normally associated with lower levels of overwieight people and obese people
(Saarlos et al 2009), and with higher levels of walking (Hoehner et al 2005 as cited by Sustrans 2007, Litman
2006, Scottish Office 1999 as cited by DfT 2001). Example attributes are more opportunities for active
transport and better access to public transportation. For children there appears to be very specific needs
within the design of the outdoor environment in order to encourage them to be active and to use the space.
However different groups and individuals will want different things. One size does not fit all (White 1998).
The National Centre for Social Research (1998) found that 14 year olds will not necessarily want to be in the
same place as 12 year olds and that a few years can make a huge difference. Parents want their pre-teen
children to be close to home in outdoor environments that are visible from the parent’s house. However by
contrast, teenagers themselves prefer locations with low supervision not immediately overlooked by the
parent’s house. However the NCSR (1998) also found that teenagers are concerned about their own safety in
less supervised areas, and research by Shaftoe (2008) found that teenagers in particular face also the
difficulty of being seen by adults as potentially problematic in public spaces.

METHODOLOGY

Whilst there is considerable literature on methods of community and public participation, there is limited
literature available on engaging with children and young people on visioning futures, and no literature was
found on undertaking this within the context of transport futures. However the work of Dobson (2010) who
considered methods of undertaking group exercises on alternative futures for a city, Hart (1997) who worked
with disadvantaged children to consider their future within a disadvantaged rural setting, Sanoff (2000) on
community participation methods, and Jackson and Harris (2006) who worked with school children on a
Foresight Report on obesity were found useful in developing the methodology for the study.

A range of interactive methods was developed for use with children. These methods were designed to be
flexible depending on the age range, number of children in the group and duration of the activity. The range
of methods comprised:

 “Travel stations game” - this is a warm-up game based on the four corners in a room being a different
transport mode and the children responding to questions and running to the corner which gave the correct
 answer (for example how do you travel to school and if a child was driven to school they would run to
the “car” corner)

Figure 2 Images provided by the facilitators for the Travel Stations game

 “My journey to school” - The children were provided with paper and coloured pencils and asked to draw
their route to school and the transport mode they used. Each child then talked about their drawing with
prompts from the facilitators (for example where do you live? Who walks to school? Why? If you get to
school by car, would you like to walk or cycle?)

 “Barriers to walking and cycling” - Snakes and Ladders game whereby the children split into two
separate groups and took turns to throw a dice. If the child representing the group landed on a snake then
they were asked to throw a cube with ‘negative’ images on each face of the cube, and the group then had
to comment on the image which landed face-up. If the child landed on a ladder then the group had to
throw the ‘positive’ cube and comment on the image which landed face-up.

Figure 3 Snakes and ladders game with example of ‘negative’ journey image and ‘positive’ journey
image used with the children

 “Doctor Who Tardis” The children were asked to walk through the Doctor Who Tardis (with blue
flashing lights and Dr Who music playing) and emerge on the other side imagining they were in 2030.
The key question they were asked was ‘What is your vision of the future like? What will your street be
like and how will you travel?’
 Figure 4 showing initial development and testing of the Tardis

The sample of participants in the activity sessions comprised 39 children. The children attended one of three
schools and prior to undertaking the exercises their parents gave informed consent for them to participate in
the activity and they completed a brief questionnaire on travel data. Participant information is as follows:

Activity Group One, 12 children aged 8-9 years, 7 children driven to school, 4 children walked to
school, 1 child cycled to school
Activity Group Two, 8 children aged 9-10 years, 4 children driven to school, 3 children walked to
school, 1 child combined driven (am) / walk (pm)
Activity Group Three, 19 children, 10 children driven to school, 9 children walked to school.

SUMMARY OF INITIAL FINDINGS

My journey to school in 2010

The main reasons cited by the children for being driven by car to school were distance; personal safety both
from traffic and strangers, parents not letting them travel independently, and convenience - parents dropping
child off at school as part of an onward journey (younger child to nursery or parent going on to work).

The children liked walking because of health and environmental benefits. They felt cycling was similarly
good for the environment with the added benefit of journey time to school (faster than walking). Typical
comments were:
“It’s healthy and good exercise.........It’s good for the environment because “if you use a car then carbon
dioxide damages the earth’s atmosphere..... You see shops as you go along.......... You can get to school faster
[by bike than walking]”.

Walking was not preferred by some children due to safety concerns, and limited support at crossing roads
(lollipop people). Typical comments were:
“I can’t ever walk because we have to take my little brother to nursery on the way to school so we always
have to go in the car……The weather makes me worried as I don’t want to get wet before school……I never
wake up to have time to walk, I should get out of bed earlier…..I wouldn’t want to do that because it would
always rain and I might get tired before school”.

Cycling was disliked by some children because of safety concerns and issues of bike maintenance. Typical
comments were:
“You can fall off and hurt yourself ......The chain sometimes comes off ......If you get run over you can die....
There is nowhere to put my bike at school..... My parents can’t afford to buy me a bike”.
Children were asked to draw and describe their route to school and some examples of this are shown below.
Child 1 cycles to school. On his map he shows the name of his road and he has highlighted places and
elements he sees in his route to school, such as trees, a cemetery, a church and traffic lights. Child 1 says: “I
ride my bike to school. When it is raining I wear a coat but when it’s cold I just wear a jumper”. Child 2’s
drawing shows his house, his school, and a few roads. He pointed out a set of traffic lights and a tree. Child 2
wrote in his picture “my car is cool” and also commented: “I drive to school”. Child 3 classifies in colours
the paths she walks on her route to school: grey for the roads, purple for the pavement and green for
alleways. She shows her house number and the names of some roads. Child 3 says: “I walk to school every
day” and also says “when it rains I put on a coat and when I go to morning care I go in the car”.

Figure 5 Drawings of the journey to school in 2010 by Child 1, Child 2 and Child 3

My journey to school in 2030

Below are examples of the drawings provided by some of the children with the accompanying explanation.
The activity sessions generated 37 drawings, text and discussion from the children and these have yet to be
analysed in depth.

Child 1 drew a spacecraft and a ‘heli-bike’ to go to school in 2030. Child 2 chose a hummer as his transport
vision of the future. Child 3 drew a mechanical flying machine and called it the “fly me” which has an
“attachable waterproof net”. Child 3 also drew a “super scooter” that “you can attach it to your back like
superman” powered by “chip fat” (fat for cooking chips), and she also designed a “hover bike” that can fly
and “you pedal the bike to make you move”.

Figure 6 Drawings of the journey to school in 2030 by Child 1, Child 2 and Child 3

Child 4 drew a scooter “powered by the sun” with a “press button and an umbrella pops out” for sun
protection. The scooter can also “plant seeds” and “stops automatic [ally] when you say ‘stop’”. Child 4
wrote in her picture: “rainbows will be out all of the time, plus there will be a pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow, the sun will have a simile on its face, houses will be a lot taller, you will ride a butterfly to school
(instead of a school bus) and cars will not be used. Child 4 designed an Atomic blast board which holds 1
person for short journeys, the Atomic ship deluxe holds 4 people for long journeys and an Atomic public bus
holds 20 pupils.
 Figure 7 Drawings of the journey to school in 2030 by Child 4, Child 5 and Child 6

CONCLUSION

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (2008) suggests that although progress has been
achieved, people with diverse needs such as women, children, young, older and disabled people in particular
are still being excluded or put into a vulnerable position within an inhospitable built environment. In relation
to children adopting sustainable travel patterns we see a steady decline in the take-up of both walking and
cycling (DfT 2007) in favour of journeys undertaken by car. Yet the potential of walking and cycling as
contributors to achieving a more inclusive society is considerable. Tight et al (2009) suggest that there is a
strong case to increase the amount of walking and cycling in the UK to improve health and well being and
reduce the impact of emissions on the environment, as well as reduce the levels of local congestion. The
potential is substantial as nearly two thirds of trips are under 8km in length (42% under 3km), and as 35% of
car trips are under 1.6km, where their efficiency is at its lowest.

The paper presented initial findings from three activity sessions undertaken with children aged 8 to 10 years.
Although we did not speak directly to parents, the majority of children confirmed that their parents preferred
the child to be driven in the car primarily because of convenience and safety. The children themselves
provided a mixed view on walking and it was certainly not perceived as enjoyable or as comfortable as
cycling. The children had fears if they were walking that they would be assaulted or mugged, and they feared
their safety when crossing roads without support such as road crossing patrols. By contrast cycling was
viewed by some children as exciting and safe, whilst other children had major concerns about their safety
from traffic. Note: the futures drawings by the children have yet to be analysed in detail.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research consortium acknowledge the support of both the Advisory Committee, and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Additionally Joel Cooper provided the artist
drawings used in the Barriers to Walking and Cycling activity.

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