Schemes boosting cycling and walking accelerate across the UK | Society | The Guardian

Campaigners urge city leaders across the world to see coronavirus and climate crisis as call to actionMatthew TaylorThu 24 Sep 2020 16.39 BSTOne of the first “low-traffic neighbourhoods” to be created in the UK was in Hackney, east London, in the early 1970s, when residential roads were closed to through traffic but remained open to local residents, pedestrians and cyclists.Since then, most of the borough’s other residential roads and backstreets have been given over almost completely to cars.But as the coronavirus crisis upended city life, a dramatic shift has been taking place. Across the country there has been a concerted effort to prioritise cycling and walking over driving, widening pavements, closing rat runs and building hundreds of miles of new cycle lanes