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Design Streets for Humans, Not Vehicles

Director - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets

Healthy Streets gives designers the tools to create places that people actually want to use.

Lucy Saunders has spent her career asking one deceptively simple question: what does a human being need in order to move through a street comfortably, safely and willingly?

It is a question that sits at the heart
of Healthy Streets, the framework she created to help planners, designers, engineers and politicians reimagine public space through a public health lens.

A public health specialist by training, Lucy realised early on that the biggest levers for improving population wellbeing are not in hospitals but in the streets outside them. The way cities allocate space, regulate movement and shape walking routes determines physical activity, air quality, safety and social connection. So she shifted her work from hospitals to highways, collaborating with the people who control the environments we use every day.

You do not want people walking, cycling or being outside in spite of the conditions. You want them moving through a healthy environment.

A Simple Framework for a Complex Problem

Lucy’s Healthy Streets approach is built around ten indicators that capture what every person needs from a street: clean air, safety, shade, places to stop, things to see and do, and accessibility, among others.

These are not optional extras.

The biggest misunderstanding is that people treat the indicators like a menu. You cannot pick one or two. They are all basic human needs.

This is why the framework is deliberately written in plain, accessible language. It is designed for councillors, community members, policy teams, planners and residents. Everyone must understand it, because everyone influences a street’s success.

Why Narrow Streets Are Often Better Streets

Lucy lights up when talking about human scale. Many UK streets were built before “the car existed, and that is a blessing.

Our older streets already have built-in ‘human scale’. They are easier to turn into places people want to spend time in.

By contrast, cities with oversized modern roads struggle to make walking appealing.

Streets should feel intimate, navigable and safe, not like miniature motorways.

Before and After: The Quiet Work of Transformation

Most Healthy Streets interventions happen on existing roads, the ones we will be using for the next hundred years. New developments matter, but retrofitting London’s Victorian and Georgian streets has the greatest population impact.

Lucy is proud of the thousands of small transformations across London: speed limit reductions on the strategic road network, widened pavements, new crossings, greener spaces and incremental improvements along streets such as Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.

But one moment stands out: a bench.

After delivering training to the City of London, she pointed out a missed opportunity in a newly paved street: nowhere to sit. The team later installed a bench exactly where she recommended.

A Personal Vision Grounded in Public Health

Lucy’s passion comes from a deeply human place. She is not designing for abstract “users.” She is designing for herself, her neighbours, her ageing community and the people she passes every day.

She may not have a single favourite street in London, but she does have favourite moments: the delight of a crossing signal that changes instantly when pressed, the relief of a wide stretch of pavement, the simple dignity of a seat where someone can rest. Healthy streets are made of these moments.

Designing Future Neighbourhoods

Lucy advises developers, planners and councils on creating healthy environments from the ground up. New places, she argues, must avoid locking in unhealthy patterns for decades.

Small design choices – a kerb, a narrow footpath, awkward level changes – can shape accessibility, ageing, mobility and community life for generations.

It is demoralising to see a brand-new street built thoughtlessly, knowing no one will come back to fix it.

Her Healthy Streets Design Check tools help planners score streets early in the process, revealing where human needs are not yet being met.

Communicating without Jargon

Lucy believes the biggest barrier to healthy streets is not engineering, budgets or policy. It is communication.

Professionals rarely explain improvements in terms people care about. They talk about “junction treatments” instead of “keeping your shoes dry when it rains.” They talk about “traffic calming” instead of “helping your kids get to the park safely on their own.”

When changes are framed in personal, human terms, resistance softens.

When they are not, objections multiply.

Change Culture by Changing Infrastructure

Planners often tell Lucy that they are waiting for the “culture to change” before redesigning streets. She strongly rejects this.

Infrastructure creates culture. Not the other way around.

Raise crossings, add seating, make the pavement wide and dignified, reduce noise and danger – then people walk. Then they dwell. Then high streets revive. The behaviour follows the built form.

Healthy Streets is not about banning cars but about reducing stress and unpredictability for everyone, including those driving cars. As Lucy puts it:

Nobody wants a stressed driver in a street full of people.

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. You cannot cherry-pick human needs

Healthy Streets’ ten indicators must be delivered together. Seating, crossings, clean air, shade, safety and social opportunities are interdependent. Neglect one and the street fails.

2. Infrastructure shapes behaviour

Culture does not change on its own. Slower speeds, raised crossings and human-scale design shift how people feel, move and interact. Build the behaviour you want to see.

3. Communicate benefits in human terms

People respond to personal impact, not planning jargon. ‘Dry feet,’ ‘safe kids,’ ‘calmer driving’ and ‘somewhere to rest’ win more support than abstract concepts.

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Making Sense of Place

The Art of Hospitality

Making Sense of Place

Let’s talk

Design Streets for Humans, Not Vehicles

Director - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets

Insights from
Director - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets

Healthy Streets gives designers the tools to create places that people actually want to use.

A Simple Framework for a Complex Problem

Why Narrow Streets Are Often Better Streets

Before and After: The Quiet Work of Transformation

A Personal Vision Grounded in Public Health

Designing Future Neighbourhoods

Communicating without Jargon

Change Culture by Changing Infrastructure

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. You cannot cherry-pick human needs

2. Infrastructure shapes behaviour

3. Communicate benefits in human terms

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Related reports

The Art of Hospitality

Designing for Safety, Belonging & Joy

Design Streets for Humans, Not Vehicles

Director - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets

Insights fromDirector - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets

Healthy Streets gives designers the tools to create places that people actually want to use.

A Simple Framework for a Complex Problem

Why Narrow Streets Are Often Better Streets

Before and After: The Quiet Work of Transformation

A Personal Vision Grounded in Public Health

Designing Future Neighbourhoods

Communicating without Jargon

Change Culture by Changing Infrastructure

Final Thoughts

Three Key Takeaways

1. You cannot cherry-pick human needs

2. Infrastructure shapes behaviour

3. Communicate benefits in human terms

To receive a copy of the Making Sense of Place report click here

Related reports

The Art of Hospitality

Designing for Safety, Belonging & Joy

Insights from
Director - Lucy Saunders, Healthy Streets