This session provides an introduction to green and blue infrastructure, why it is important, and how it can be successfully integrated into the design and delivery of active travel networks.
You will see successful examples of rain gardens, sustainable urban drainage systems, and other innovations in the field. In addition, the webinar will cover how green and blue infrastructure is currently being embedded in Scotland, as well as common delivery challenges and mitigations.
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Jon Rowe CMLI is an experienced landscape architect, with over 14 years of experience, who has worked in a range of global consultancy and third sector roles. His interest and experience predominantly lies in leading projects involving movement. This has included projects on the Thames Path, railway stations and travel hubs, and – more recently – active travel.
Jon is currently the head of Sustrans Scotland’s Design, Engineering and Mobility department with responsibility for the design and delivery of active travel infrastructure projects throughout Scotland. He has a particular interest in the integration of green and blue infrastructure into active travel networks and is currently working on Sustrans design guidance for publication later in 2025.
With new housing underway in towns and cities around the world, local authorities are in a unique position to influence developers to create opportunities for sustainable mobility and behaviour change. The City of Rotterdam is doing just that with targeted frameworks to meet the city’s climate and mobility goals.
This webinar will chart Rotterdam’s approach to standardising sustainable mobility within housing developments, and how the council influences developers to make it easier to choose active travel and public transport. This webinar will start by setting out the political and strategic context in the Netherlands and the greater Rotterdam region, followed by a case study to show how these principles are working in action.
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If you found this webinar useful, see our previous Rotterdam case study Rotterdam: Moving Ahead Safely, or see our webinar series Gender and Place in Europe, for more European case studies. If you want to read more about this webinar’s topics, check out the resources below.:
Please note, some web pages appear in Dutch and can be translated using a translation widget.
Presenters
Thorsten Willemstein is a Mobility Advisor at the City of Rotterdam, where he specializes in traffic safety and urban mobility initiatives. Since February 2023, he has led projects to enhance traffic safety around schools and improve overall traffic safety in the city with different stakeholders. With a background in built environment from Breda University of Applied Sciences and previous advisory roles in the City of The Hague and ABG-councils, Thorsten applies his expertise to make Rotterdam’s transportation systems safer and more efficient.
Safety by Design: Crossings and Junctions is an introduction to designing junctions to provide good conditions for active travel for all. Junctions can be major barriers that deter people from walking and cycling and are where most collisions occur. The training covers safe and compliant design approaches for junctions and tools such as the Junction Assessment Tool and the crossing selector tool.
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Julie Plichon – is Head of Design and Engineering for London.Julie has worked extensively in the private and public sector, primarily in London in areas covering urban design, inclusive design, urban planning and transport projects. Her focus is on projects that reallocate road space for people centred uses through designing spaces that make streets safer, green and healthier. She has worked on the design, delivery and monitoring of LTNs in Islington, north London.
Ellie Holliday – A Principal Engineer, Ellie has over 10 years of experience leading design of transportation schemes across UK and Ireland, ensuring buildability and delivering accessible designs that meet the needs of all users. Her focus is promoting active travel. She has led the design of major and local cycling, walking and wheeling infrastructure, LTNs and healthy routes. She has working knowledge of best practice and implementation in constrained conditions and has delivered LTN 1/20 training to local authorities across England, including training on junctions and crossings.
This webinar is an introduction to the principles and design of low traffic neighbourhoods. The training covers LTN design in its stages, from understanding the street network, to agreeing boundary roads, placing modal filters, to activating streets and wider interventions that support walking, wheeling, and cycling. The webinar also touches on other key aspects of Low Traffic Neighbourhood delivery like in depth engagement and robust monitoring, with a primary focus on design.
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Check out these other Showcase pages on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods:
Active Travel in Europe: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: In the second edition of the series Active Travel in Europe, we explore low traffic neighbourhoods, also known as superblocks, across Europe with practitioners from five different cities – Barcelona, Utrecht, Vienna, Berlin, and Edinburgh.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods-an introduction: Low traffic neighbourhoods (LTN) are when private cars can access local homes and businesses, but can not cross through, reducing traffic volumes.
Diving into Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: As part of the Places for Everyone event programme – Engage · Inspire · Learn – partners from local authorities and organisations around Scotland were invited to hear from a variety of voices on the challenges of Low Traffic Neighborhoods.
Transport for all: Pave the Way: Pave The Way is the only independent and in-depth research into how disabled people have been impacted by Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and the barriers to Active Travel.
Presenters
Julie Plichon – is Head of Design and Engineering for London.Julie has worked extensively in the private and public sector, primarily in London in areas covering urban design, inclusive design, urban planning and transport projects. Her focus is on projects that reallocate road space for people centred uses through designing spaces that make streets safer, green and healthier. She has worked on the design, delivery and monitoring of LTNs in Islington, north London.
Rajiv Ratan – A Principal Engineer,Rajiv has delivered projects across a wide range of areas with particular focus on active travel and highways, from feasibility and concept design through to detailed design and supervising construction. This has been for local authorities in London and more widely in the UK. In London, Rajiv has worked on the feasibility, design and delivery of a number of LTNs in the London Borough of Haringey, as well as on quality assurance for the design of interventions in Lambeth LTNs. Rajiv has brought extensive technical knowledge and construction experience and has delivered projects on site that required contract administration, site supervision and providing design solutions on site.
In this knowledge-sharing Webinar, Thorsten Willemstein discusses how Rotterdam wants to improve road safety, with specific examples of projects Rotterdam is conducting. Topics discussed in this Euroean city case study include:
How to get more children cycling and walking to schools,
Educating children about traffic,
An annual tour around high schools,
Cycling lessons for children and adults,
Providing bicycles for people with a low-income.
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
If you found this webinar useful, see our webinar series Gender and Place in Europe, for more European case studies. Or check out the recommended resources mentioned in the training:
Licht Aan – interactive game to raise awareness about the importance of lighting on bikes
There are translation tools on both pages.
Presenters
Thorsten Willemstein is a Mobility Advisor at the City of Rotterdam, where he specializes in traffic safety and urban mobility initiatives. Since February 2023, he has led projects to enhance traffic safety around schools and improve overall traffic safety in the city with different stakeholders. With a background in built environment from Breda University of Applied Sciences and previous advisory roles in the City of The Hague and ABG-councils, Thorsten applies his expertise to make Rotterdam’s transportation systems safer and more efficient.
The Climate Emergency & Infrastructure Constructive Conversations – 14 March 2024.
This session focused on creating climate neutral towns and cities. We discussed plans to achieve net zero, and the part that active travel infrastructure can play in this goal. From climate action towns and networks, to net zero cities we explored what this means for those of us working to deliver infrastructure to people living in communities to help bring this about. Our expert panel spent half an hour discussing these questions and more.
Following watching the recording you may find it useful to take a few minutes to reflect on the discussion.
What is still circling around in your head on this topic?
What do you feel is ‘squared away’ – you feel you have a much clearer understanding of?
What key takeaways or highlights do you have from the discussion?
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
Below are contact details for some of our panelists if you wish to contact them directly, and some links to further information relating to this topic that you may find useful.
Knowledge repository on the NetZeroCities portal. You can register to the portal if you would like but you can still access the knowledge repository without registering. What might be of particular interest is the Climate City Contracts, which can be accessed through filtering resources by type as seen on the left hand side of the page.
The recently published European Declaration on Cycling is a useful documents for language around active travel, although not especially relevant to the UK, a useful resource non the less.
Grab a cuppa, get comfortable and join us for some informal constructive conversations about some of the challenges in delivering active travel infrastructure.
At each 1 hour session, our expert panel will spend half an hour discussing key questions and more around the chosen topic. Following this, you can take part in an optional small group discussion where you can share your own experiences on the topic, present a related issue in a live project, and receive advice and feedback from peers.
Other sessions
The ‘Climate Emergency and Infrastructure series’ of constructive conversations explores sustainability in construction of active travel projects.
The ‘By Design’ series of constructive conversations explores how urban design in active travel projects can help to address some of the big issues facing society today.
Look out for more series on different topics in future, and if there is a topic you would like to suggest for a series, or a standalone session, please do get in touch with us placesforeveryone@sustrans.org.uk.
By Design Constructive Conversations – 19 March 2024.
This session focused on strengthening social connections by design. How does the design of our streets and public spaces foster, or discourage social connections? Do benches reduce social isolation and enhance wellbeing? and does more social connection within a community mean higher resilience?
Our expert panel spent half an hour discussing these questions and more around how urban design can increase social connections, and therefore result in better well being for people living in our communities.
Following watching the recording you may find it useful to take a few minutes to reflect on the discussion.
What is still circling around in your head on this topic?
What do you feel is ‘squared away’ – you feel you have a much clearer understanding of?
What key takeaways or highlights do you have from the discussion?
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
Ryan Woolrych, Professor Ageing and Urban Studies, Director of the Urban Institute, Heriot-Watt University – R.D.Woolrych@hw.ac.uk
Grace and Lennon, Students at Morgan Academy, Dundee – If you would like to work with students at Morgan Academy, please contact Gregor McBain – Deputy Head – gmcbain678@dundeeschools.scot
Useful Links and Resources
For further information on working with young people, please see the work Sustrans have been doing with A Place in Childhood –
Secured by Design (SBD) is the official police security initiative that is owned by the UK Police Service with the specific aim to reduce crime and help people live more safely. The site includes various guides and resources, as well a UK wide network of Designing out Crime Officers.
The Schools Health and Wellbeing Improvement Research Network (SHINE) can also help you to connect with young people in project areas – they have a newsletter where opportunities for schools to get involved in projects can be advertised if the project clearly demonstrates benefits for the school community and aims to support positive health outcomes for young people – this can include provision of spaces aiming to improve physical and mental wellbeing, for example by encouraging young people to be more active, or by providing safe space for people of all ages to socialise and feel safe. If you are working in a Local Authority, your Education or Learning and Development teams are likely to already be linked in with SHINE and may also be able to assist with this process.
Projects can also apply for SHINE affiliated status – A member of the SHINE team would meet with affiliated project teams to support you to find/connect with a school or Local Authority (if you are a community or public sector organisation) who would be interested to engage with you. However, this is a longer process than promotion via the newsletter – the application is reviewed by a panel to ensure that it demonstrates mutual benefit for the school.
Grab a cuppa, get comfortable and join us for some informal constructive conversations about some of the challenges in delivering active travel infrastructure.
At each 1 hour session, our expert panel will spend half an hour discussing key questions and more around the chosen topic. Following this, you can take part in an optional small group discussion where you can share your own experiences on the topic, present a related issue in a live project, and receive advice and feedback from peers.
Other sessions
The ‘By Design’ series of constructive conversations explores how urban design in active travel projects can help to address some of the big issues facing society today.
Look out for more series on different topics in future, and if there is a topic you would like to suggest for a series, or a standalone session, please do get in touch with us placesforeveryone@sustrans.org.uk
The Climate Emergency & Infrastructure Constructive Conversations – 24 April 2024
In this session we discussed embedding sustainable procurement practices in construction of active travel infrastructure. What sustainable materials are out there? What should you be considering in terms of cost vs benefit? What should you be asking for from suppliers and contractors you engage to carry out work on your projects?
Our expert panel spent half an hour discussing these questions and more around procurement in the construction industry, and for active travel in particular.
Following watching the recording you may find it useful to take a few minutes to reflect on the discussion.
What is still circling around in your head on this topic?
What do you feel is ‘squared away’ – you feel you have a much clearer understanding of?
What key takeaways or highlights do you have from the discussion?
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
Below are contact details for some of our panelists if you wish to contact them directly, and some links to further information relating to this topic that you may find useful.
Sustainable Procurement Ltd provides services for public and private sector procurers, as well as private and third sector suppliers. Services range from sustainable procurement strategy for clients to innovation in the supply of specific products and services – Sustainable Procurement Limited – Homepage
Sustrans has been working to decarbonise our activities. if you would like to see our Carbon Reduction Plan, you can find it here: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/legal/
Scottish Collaboration of Transportation Specialists was mentioned as a resource for sharing learning – www.scotsnet.org.uk
LCRIG mentioned by David, has a mission, centred around collaboration, innovation, skills, and a dedicated commitment to decarbonisation in the highways sector, facilitates positive change within the highways community and among our members. We act as a vital link between central and local government, the supply chain, and the wider highways community. LCRIG
The Procura+ Network has been developed by and for procurers and staff dealing with sustainability and innovation issues in public authorities. There is a fee to join the network, but the website also has a wealth of case studies and resources from across the EU. Procura+ | Procura+ European Sustainable Procurement Network (procuraplus.org)
Zero Waste Scotland has developed an online interactive guide to reduce waste, and enhance reuse and recycling, through design and resource efficiency for construction, renovation and demolition, it was developed back in 2016 so some of the targets have shifted, but the same principles would apply. https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/resources/procuring-resource-efficient-construction-projects
Phil has provided this example of a trialed low carbon aggregate. Sustrans cannot make any recommendations regarding this material here. If you think it would be suitable for use in a Sustrans funded project you are working on, please discuss this with your grant advisor. https://www.lowcarbonmaterials.com/acla
About Constructive conversations
Grab a cuppa, get comfortable and join us for some informal constructive conversations about some of the challenges in delivering active travel infrastructure.
At each 1 hour session, our expert panel will spend half an hour discussing key questions and more around the chosen topic. Following this, you can take part in an optional small group discussion where you can share your own experiences on the topic, present a related issue in a live project, and receive advice and feedback from peers.
Other sessions
The ‘Climate Emergency and Infrastructure’ series of constructive conversations explores sustainability in construction of active travel projects.
The ‘By Design’ series of constructive conversations explores how urban design in active travel projects can help to address some of the big issues facing society today.
By Design Constructive Conversations – 21 February 2024.
This session focused on designing for diverse accessibility needs. What prevents people with varying disabilities or mobility needs being able to safely and confidently navigate public spaces? How can design features address these needs and make life easier for everyone – without one interfering with another?
Our expert panel spent half an hour discussing these questions and more around how urban design can ensure that designs are accessible to everyone regardless of their circumstances, and provide spaces where anyone can travel actively, where they live, work or socialise.
Following watching the recording you may find it useful to take a few minutes to reflect on the discussion.
What is still circling around in your head on this topic?
What do you feel is ‘squared away’ – you feel you have a much clearer understanding of?
What key takeaways or highlights do you have from the discussion?
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
Below are contact details for some of our panelists if you wish to contact them directly, and some links to further information relating to this topic that you may find useful.
Information on the inclusive design reports Robert has been working on, and other reports produced by living streets – the Slips, Trips and Falls report may also be of particular interest. Our Key Reports and Research | Living Streets
Grab a cuppa, get comfortable and join us for some informal constructive conversations about some of the challenges in delivering active travel infrastructure.
At each 1 hour session, our expert panel will spend half an hour discussing key questions and more around the chosen topic. Following this, you can take part in an optional small group discussion where you can share your own experiences on the topic, present a related issue in a live project, and receive advice and feedback from peers.
Other sessions
The ‘By Design’ series of constructive conversations explores how urban design in active travel projects can help to address some of the big issues facing society today.
Look out for more series on different topics in future, and if there is a topic you would like to suggest for a series, or a standalone session, please do get in touch with us placesforeveryone@sustrans.org.uk
The Climate Emergency & Infrastructure Constructive Conversations – 24 January 2024.
In this session we took a deep dive into the refreshed PAS 2080 standard (the standard for managing carbon in infrastructure). What does the introduction of this standard mean for active travel infrastructure projects? How can it be embedded into working practices, and what do project teams need to be thinking about so that they are ready for the changes it will bring to construction requirements?
Our expert panel spent half an hour discussing these questions and more around how PAS 2080 can help speed up decarbonisation in the built environment sector.
Following watching the recording you may find it useful to take a few minutes to reflect on the discussion.
What is still circling around in your head on this topic?
What do you feel is ‘squared away’ – you feel you have a much clearer understanding of?
What key takeaways or highlights do you have from the discussion?
Feedback Survey
We would appreciate you taking a moment to complete our short feedback survey after you’ve watched the recording.
Below are contact details for some of our panelists if you wish to contact them directly, and some links to further information relating to this topic that you may find useful.
Maria Manidaki, Technical Director – Decarbonisation, Mott MacDonald
Our panelist, Maria, suggested looking at the ‘PAS City’ example on page 24 in the above guidance, which illustrates a worked example of a fictional project and how they applied the PAS 2080 carbon management process and the key decarbonisation principles.
Grab a cuppa, get comfortable and join us for some informal constructive conversations about some of the challenges in delivering active travel infrastructure.
At each 1 hour session, our expert panel will spend half an hour discussing key questions and more around the chosen topic. Following this, you can take part in an optional small group discussion where you can share your own experiences on the topic, present a related issue in a live project, and receive advice and feedback from peers.
Other sessions
The ‘Climate Emergency and Infrastructure’ series of constructive conversations explores sustainability in construction of active travel projects.
The ‘By Design’ series of constructive conversations explores how urban design in active travel projects can help to address some of the big issues facing society today.
Look out for more series on different topics in future, and if there is a topic you would like to suggest for a series, or a standalone session, please do get in touch with us placesforeveryone@sustrans.org.uk.
