A very rewarding afternoon was had last Friday with a public talk by David Engwicht.  David's a founding member of Creative Communities International and advocate for Liveable Streets.  He was invited by Nelson City Council's Active Transport Forum.  He gave an inspiring talk to the Forum, plus a large audience of interested parties including Chris and Will from Bike Nelson Bays.

David's focus is making towns and streets more people-friendly, adding life and activity to streets, and reducing the harm done by too much high-speed traffic.  He has amazing ideas for helping retail areas attract customers, reducing anti-social behaviour in public spaces, and improving road safety by getting motorists to be more respectful.

David advocates the 'naked streets' concept, where traditional signage and road markings -which tell road users that predictable, high-speed rules apply- are removed, and replaced with 'mental speedbumps'.  These could be events, objects or information that add uncertainty, intrigue and humour, and persuade motorists to drive carefully, as a guest on the street.  He gave the example of the father who, instead of bringing his daughter to the playground, supervised her playing on the footpath.  Soon, other kids joined them, the street became enlivened, traffic slowed, and neighbours began getting to know each other again.

David believes that a certain amount of conflict is an inherent part of public space in towns,  that facing & overcoming this conflict is part of the necessary, natural life of a town.  This management is crucial for creativity.  He emphasised that a big part of why we live in towns and cities is for the spontaneous meetings, sights and encounters we have there, which really inform what we do with much of our time and our income -seeing a new bike in the shop, bumping into a friend who tells you about a downhill meeting, etc. etc.

Between 50 and 80% of motor trips, David reckons, are unnecessary, and we should be taking an approach to reducing these trips, or transferring them to bike, bus, or foot, similar to our waste reduction & recycling schemes.

There were some tough questions for David, particularly about a certain well-known street occupier in Nelson, and there's no simple answer to all questions about how to share space, but it was great to see a good number of City Council -and Tasman District Council- staff taking on these positive and creative ideas which could help Nelson develop as a bustling, healthy place.

Here's the website for Creative Communities-
https://www.creative-communities.com/about-us/about-david

The Nelson Active Transport Forum was set up to encourage information sharing and cross-sector action in Nelson between agencies with an interest in active transport.  Bike Nelson Bays attends meetings on behalf of cyclists.  More info here - http://www.nelsonactivetransportforum.blogspot.co.nz/