88% of the people in 18% of the space

I did a simple traffic count outside a local primary school today using a pair two clickers. A total of 581 pedestrians passed me, and 80 cars which means that 88% of the traffic was on foot. I then measured the width of the road which was 9 meters wide of which 700mm was available for pedestrians on one side and 900mm on the other when the cars parked partially on the pavement were accounted for. A total of 1.6 meters or 18% of the road width was available to pedestrians.

88% of people are on the pavements with 18% of the space

In reality it was worse. There was a car parked across the raised crossing for some time, another car drove along the pavement for 20 meters or so to pass a vehicle on the road and then a car hooted as it reversed out across the pavement into the road making everyone wait.

We have being playing with the idea of Ofped inspections for schools, which would be an assessment that could easily be made for schools across the country. One measure would be how many people walk or cycle. Another would be how equitably the space was allocated between car drivers and pedestrians. Points would then be deducted for dangerous of illegal activity by motorists.