The Importance of Livable Streets with Bruce Appleyard
About this episode
Exploring the concept of livable streets, Dr. Bruce Appleyard shares insights from his father's influential work and his own updates in 'Livable Streets 2.0'. The discussion delves into the impact of traffic on community connections, safety, and urban design, highlighting personal experiences that shaped their perspectives. Bruce recounts the tragic loss of his father to a drunk driver, which fueled his passion for advocating safer, more human-centered urban environments. The episode emphasizes the importance of designing streets that foster social ties and prioritize the well-being of all community members.
We talked with Dr. Bruce Appleyard, who has spent a lifetime thinking about what we mean when we talk about liveable streets—and why it is so important that we build our cities with human beings in mind, first and foremost. Bruce's research makes an appearance in Life After Cars, and his father, Donald Appleyard, was a legend in this field for his work that led to the indispensable book Livable Streets, published in 1981. In 2020 Bruce published Livable Streets 2.0, which brings his father's book up to date while preserving its core principles and teachings. We talked with him about how streets can foster (or erode) social ties in our communities, how car-centric infrastructure harms children's ability to navigate, and how we can fulfill what his father called "the promise of our streets."
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