This article was written for CityChangers.org by Caroline Tilleman, a communications expert and self-confessed avid pedestrian. In it, Caroline discusses how even street design with a sustainability focus can end up penalising pedestrians. Illustrating her observations with images, she shares the good and the not-so-good experiences of pedestrian space in her home town of Ghent, Belgium.
The road to bad pedestrian space is paved with good intentions.
A focus on cars in the past 100 years or so has relegated pedestrians from the middle of the street literally to the sidelines. Despite making use of it for millions of years, we’ve all but forgotten that pedestrianism is a mobility mode in its own right.
But it’s not just about forgetting. Even when focus finally turns to pedestrians and footpaths, even when the folks involved in designing and constructing our streets have the best intentions, it can still go wrong. How can that be?
Wide, flat, obstacle free space is all that pedestrians need. And yet, it’s vehicles that consistently get it, not the walkers and wheelers. No wonder so many pedestrians are forced to step out onto the asphalt even when they have their ‘own’ space.
Let’s look at some examples from Ghent where an update of the public space took a less than ideal approach.
When Space Improves but Mobility Doesn’t
In a commendable change to Sleepstraat, parking spaces have been removed to make way for terraces, but the usable width of the footpath has not increased. If people are moving in opposite directions, everyone has to wait for their turn to pass by the outdoor furniture, and there is not enough space at all for wheelchair users.
Similarly, in the past, over in Galglaan, parking spaces were cleared to make way for plants but not for a wider footpath.
The recent renovation of this stretch of pavement held on to this old approach. It’s an awkwardly narrow space, anything other than one pedestrian in one direction causes conflict, and that’s without considering the demands placed upon the space by other uses, such as residents’ access. I took this photo while stood waiting for a resident to finish fumbling with her keys.
This shared space experiment in Overpoort has kept the asphalt intact but pushes pedestrians into the middle of the street by replacing the footpaths with plant beds. The road is unsafe for pedestrians, with many cyclists, a few cars, and buses all using it as a through street.
Cars have been limited in the street of Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat, and pedestrians are theoretically allowed to take up the whole space; full-width terraces were added to the footpaths.
But nothing was done with the asphalt, so there’s a high number of cyclists that ride at full speed and park their bikes right in front of the shops. It’s now very uncomfortable to shop here as a walker, and access is impossible as a wheeler.
Accessible, Safe, and Comfortable
Footpaths need to be wide, flat, and obstacle free. But what about pedestrianism as a whole; what is needed to make this mobility mode work? By observing pedestrians around me, I’ve distilled three criteria in a certain order.
- Accessible: can I get somewhere by walking/wheeling?
- Safe: can I get somewhere walking/wheeling without getting hurt?
- Comfortable: can I get somewhere safely without feeling uncomfortable all the way there?
Let’s look at those in turn.
Accessibility
Pedestrians just want to get somewhere and will risk their life, if necessary, e.g. by stepping into the road when there’s no other choice. Not being able to get somewhere – because only car drivers are supplied with the appropriate infrastructure, or because it’s not wheeler accessible – is truly the lowest point.
Safety
Many more people will take a route when they know it’s safe. This is not just about traffic situations but also about how dangerous spaces are for various groups, e.g. women.
Comfort
And if we really want more people to walk and wheel, we need to improve comfort too.
Because if you can technically get to a place safely, but you’re constantly having to flatten yourself against the wall to let other people pass, or you get hit in the face by greenery every 20 metres, or have to deal with jump scares because cyclists blow past at high speeds, etc., you’re going to feel exhausted by the time you’ve arrived.
Luckily there are street designs that show the way on how to make things accessible, safe, and comfortable for all pedestrians.
Back to the Future
Nieuwpoort Street and its surroundings were redone in 2025. These streets are narrow. The neighbourhood consists of homes and public places like secondary schools and an art centre. There are busy roads going around it.
So it makes perfect sense to do what the City of Ghent did here: they removed the asphalt and the pavements and turned the whole thing into one big footpath. It now has pavement tiles from side to side.
It’s smart. When you have asphalt or anything resembling a footpath, pedestrians will be marginalised, pushed to the sides of the street by car drivers or cyclists. With this kind of change however, the whole street is for everyone, and it’s walkers and wheelers that have the most to gain.
Now pedestrians take up the whole street, only yielding to car drivers and cyclists when necessary.
To me, the success of this approach is evident in how the atmosphere immediately changed.
Evidence of Success in Pedestrian Spaces
In this photograph, three kids casually walk past with a ball under their arm, chatting. They cross a man in the other direction with plenty of room left between them.
Three visitors walk in the middle of the street admiring the buildings on both sides, unaffected by the cyclist passing in the other direction.
A couple walks hand in hand. In many places, there would not be enough room for this, but in this set-up, there’s that much space to manoeuvre that they wouldn’t need to think about giving way to people coming from the other direction.
Note how the type of cobblestone used here (sawn setts) is very flat and accessible.
A subtle change in appearance but a major one in walkability: this part of Houtbriel Street had very narrow and slanted footpaths but now everything is smoother and much more level. People can move freely, and we’ve got plants.
Parents walk next to each other with a pram and with their baby in a carrier. They don’t have to navigate the pram past obstacles, and don’t have to feel vulnerable in traffic.
An exit leads towards a busy road. But when you walk into this neighbourhood, everything feels so relaxed all of a sudden, compared to “outside”. Cyclists seem to ride slower too.
Benefits of True Pedestrian Design
In this set-up, there’s no car- or bike-induced feeling of rush-rush. There’s no noise. Humans going from A to B don’t constantly have to navigate around each other with the narrowest of margins. They don’t have to climb over obstacles, and they don’t have to figure out cobblestones, grass pavers, or decorative grass strips.
They can instead walk next to each other and chat. It immediately lifts the streets to that vacation feeling we all associate with pleasant, walkable places in distant cities.
Some technical highlights:
- Every street is as level as possible, and they’ve used those good, flat tiles
- The gutter is on the side, near the parked cars and plants, not obstructing the parts where pedestrians can move
- EV chargers and traffic signs are in the green space, not in the way of walkers/wheelers
- There are thin strips of green here and there, proving it doesn’t need to be a wide walking space or green, it can be both
- The planting is also gorgeous, and you are not hit in the face by a climbing plant even once – especially vital for visually impaired people
Image credits: Caroline Tilleman
A Reflection on Spaces of Urban Mobility
Whether in Ghent or in places that are further or less far along in their pedestrian journey, there’s a bizarre but useful tip I want to leave you with. Because, in a sort of roundabout way, maybe the best reminder as to what makes things work for pedestrians is to think of cars.
The roads we’ve made this past century for vehicles are flat, wide, and obstacle free. The whole road surface is earth-, grass-, and mud-free, smooth, and sturdy. The road never suddenly disappears. Car drivers can drive at high speed without having to swerve around obstacles or getting stuck. And sharp corners or impossible driving lines are avoided.
Most importantly: you can get everywhere by car. It’s about time we brought that back for pedestrians too.