Social distancing is necessary to limit the infection rate, but in urban areas people are finding there is not enough space to pass one another at a safe distance.


This, combined with essential workers trying to get to work without using public transport (a possible infection risk), quieter roads under lockdown, and the prospect of gridlock if we emerge from lockdown without safe alternatives to public transport other than private cars, provides an argument for providing more space for people to walk, exercise, and cycle to work in urban areas.


Temporary infrastructure is being constructed in New Zealand, Paris, Berlin, Budapest, and New York (from only a quick search online - there are probably more), and such measures bring additional benefits, to: help people get fit (building an ability to fight the virus if someone catches it); limit the spread of infection (travelling in the open air with the ability to keep apart from others); if lanes are wide enough they can give emergency services a route through gridlocked traffic (its easier for people walking running and cycling to move to one side than it is for motor vehicles), and in the long term to allow us to achieve carbon targets and health ambitions.


The engineering community could help facilitate in building this form of resilience into urban areas by reallocating road space and help make some good of a dire global situation.

Social distancing is necessary to limit the infection rate, but in urban areas people are finding there is not enough space to pass one another at a safe distance.


This, combined with essential workers trying to get to work without using public transport (a possible infection risk), quieter roads under lockdown, and the prospect of gridlock if we emerge from lockdown without safe alternatives to public transport other than private cars, provides an argument for providing more space for people to walk, exercise, and cycle to work in urban areas.


Temporary infrastructure is being constructed in New Zealand, Paris, Berlin, Budapest, and New York (from only a quick search online - there are probably more), and such measures bring additional benefits, to: help people get fit (building an ability to fight the virus if someone catches it); limit the spread of infection (travelling in the open air with the ability to keep apart from others); if lanes are wide enough they can give emergency services a route through gridlocked traffic (its easier for people walking running and cycling to move to one side than it is for motor vehicles), and in the long term to allow us to achieve carbon targets and health ambitions.


The engineering community could help facilitate in building this form of resilience into urban areas by reallocating road space and help make some good of a dire global situation.