Walking, Safety, and Place Improvements

Walking is a great way to get around and it’s good for the environment and people—for our mental and physical health and the health of our communities. The City of Sydney recognises these benefits, so they reached out to us to undertake a set of street operation and configuration plans with a focus on improving safety and place for people walking in Sydney. Our assessments took place within three study areas that currently have poor outcomes for people using walking networks or need improved outcomes because of changes in the transport environment.

We first established primary walking routes for each area, then carried out a detailed review of each one using the Healthy Streets Assessment Tool to identify concerns—Healthy Streets is an approach that looks at streets through a human experience and health lens, assessing streets through 10 Healthy Streets indicators. Addressing issues identified in our study, we produced street operation and configuration plans, presented mitigation and improvement measures, and developed an implementation plan with priority actions.

With our proposed design responses serving as initial concepts, the City of Sydney can keep safety and place for people walking at top of mind for consideration in budget programs and grant applications.