Against indiscriminate pedestrianisation

Our position

iMOVE is against indiscriminate pedestrianisation: the closure of streets to traffic decided on the basis of a general idea of the city and not of a study of that specific network. We do not say every pedestrian zone is wrong. We say a closure is carried out only if the prior study demonstrates that nobody's journey gets worse and that it does not overlap flows that are separate today.

What we mean by "indiscriminate"

A pedestrianisation is indiscriminate when at least one of these four things is missing:

• a network analysis showing where the vehicles that pass there today will go;
• an infrastructure alternative (bypass, edge-of-centre car park, redesigned node) that compensates for the closure;
• a prior study demonstrating that journey times do not increase;
• a commitment to restore if the verification afterwards contradicts the study.

What happens to the network

Journeys do not disappear when a street is closed: they change route, time, mode or destination, or are simply discouraged. When they change route, through traffic floods onto neighbouring streets and overlaps with local traffic: two flows that did not meet before. Journey times lengthen for those who stay in the car, for those who travel by bus in the same diverted traffic, for those who deliver, for those who work in the city and cannot afford not to travel.

The burden falls above all on categories with few alternatives: tradespeople and installers with their work vehicles, doctors and home-care workers, people with reduced mobility, residents who can only reach home by car, shops that depend on being reachable.

Six questions before closing a street

1. Where will the vehicles that use it today go? This needs an origin-destination matrix and a network model, not an estimate by eye.
2. By how much do the alternative routes lengthen? If they lengthen, for anyone and in any time band, the closure is not carried out.
3. Does it overlap flows that are separate today? If so, the closure is rejected.
4. What is the effect on surface public transport, emergency vehicles and logistics? Here too, no increase.
5. Who lives or works there and has no alternative? Reduced mobility, itinerant trades, shops.
6. Which infrastructure work compensates for the closure? Bypass, car park, redesign of a node: if the answer is "none", a piece of the project is missing.

When it can work

There are contexts in which pedestrianisation works: where through traffic has already been taken out by a ring road, where access is guaranteed by nearby structured parking, where residents and businesses have real alternatives. In those cases the prior study demonstrates the absence of increases, and the closure is the last link of a strategy, not the first.

"What about induced traffic?"

It is the most serious objection, and must be treated as such. The literature shows that increasing capacity can attract new demand. Our answer is not to deny the phenomenon but to include it in the prior study, sizing works on real flows: induced demand is a reason to design well, not a reason not to build. And the principle applies in both directions: closures too have effects that must be studied beforehand, not presumed.

What we ask of administrations

• Publish, before any closure, the network study demonstrating no increase in journey times and no overlap of flows.
• Do not proceed if the study does not demonstrate it.
• Pair every restriction with a compensating work or service.
• Verify the study afterwards, publish the gap, and restore if journey times turn out worse.

This is a position of iMOVE, not a study of a specific case. Network studies require local data; our method is designed precisely to produce them.