Dr Heather Holmes-Ross

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been experiencing our city from a different perspective. Recovering from a knee replacement has meant that walking is something I’ve needed to think about. Small changes in level that I would previously not have noticed, suddenly matter. Uneven surfaces are difficult. The camber of a path is important.

The experience has made me consider how a fit young twenty-something, someone pushing a pram, a person using a walking frame or wheelchair, someone with impaired vision, or a mayor recovering from surgery can travel along exactly the same street and have quite different experiences. I am lucky in that my condition is temporary. As my knee improves, my steps can again become unconsidered, however, I am very aware that for many people the challenges I have faced are part of everyday life.

As I have navigated some of my lumpier local footpaths, I have found myself reflecting on the importance of maintenance. Mitcham has traditionally used pavers for most of our footpaths, with good reason. With an abundance of street trees and reactive soils, both of which can move the ground considerably, pavers can be easily lifted and repositioned as required. But if pavers move and aren't reset, the advantage of using them is lost.

Sometimes, when finances are tight, delaying road and footpath maintenance can be tempting for Councillors. An uneven paver or a small crack in a road doesn’t look urgent or dangerous, however deterioration is cumulative. Small, simple issues of today can become much more substantial tomorrow. Delaying maintenance is generally more expensive in the long term and is not good practice. Equally, however, continuously maintaining roads without regard to future use and possibilities could also be false economy.

As climate, demographics, road usage and community expectations change we must ask ourselves, as a community, whether the requirements of the roads and footpaths of today will be the same in twenty or thirty years?

For example: our population is ageing, more people are using mobility devices, we want children to be able to move safely around their neighbourhoods and we are encouraging walking and cycling. Vehicles are changing too, and over coming decades increasingly automated vehicles may change the way we use and think about local streets.

I have written before about places around the world that are experimenting with quieter, low-speed residential streets designed as shared public spaces rather than just roads with footpaths attached.

Could some of our local streets eventually become places where pedestrians, bicycles, mobility devices, trees, children and slow-moving vehicles share space differently? Could the distinction between “road” and “footpath” become less rigid? What would make it easier for an octogenarian to keep walking independently around their neighbourhood? And what might our streets need to accommodate that we haven't even thought of yet?

I’m not sure - but it’s fun to occasionally question the things we take for granted. I’ve kind of enjoyed walking slowly for a while and experiencing my local streets from a different perspective.

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