Watching everyday from my window, I still see people using the road to manage #spaceforsocialdistancing on the pavements. These include older people, people with walking frames, parents with buggies & small children, joggers, parents guiding young cyclists.

For some who I see regularly it seems to be an anticipatory choice: the pavements aren't always busy. But if you're in a wheelchair or have a buggy, it's not easy to move out of the way, across kerbs, through parked cars, when you need to. So the road seems like a "safer" choice.

But the vehicle traffic is still picking up, making using the road itself increasingly unsafe. This is why we need #lowtrafficneighbourhoods, with a reduced and slower flow of traffic, to allow for, as the Manual for Streets suggests:

"a qualitative shift ... between a street being a place where people may wander, dawdle, or play even in the middle of the carriageway, to a movement corridor where pedestrians are relegated to their defined (often insufficient) footway space" http://rachelaldred.org/research/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-evidence/

To me this kind of street has always been valuable, but it becomes essential as we continue to manage #socialdistancing and the threat of rising covid-19 rates in many cities.