Guardrail associated with a puffin crossing.
The use of pedestrian guardrail should always be a last resort in junction and highway design. Unfortunately in the UK it has routinely been a first resort, usually as a result of design that attempts to mitigate against a poor level of service for People walking, wheeling and cycling.
A review of 70 sites where Transport for London had removed guardrail (2017 by Street Behaviour) found that there were significant reductions (53%) in killed and serious injuries to pedestrians at these in the three years after removal compared to the three years before. There is therefore a pressing argument for guardrail removal on safety grounds alone, regardless of how damaging it is to the attractiveness and greening of our urban public realm.
Guardrail on a two stage staggered puffin
Transport Initiatives, working with Urban Movement, have been systematically assessing over 80 guardrail sites for Dartford Borough Council in the last year. For this work we developed a formal assessment process to triage recommendations for each site which could involve:
- Total or partial removal of guardrail
- Total or partial removal of guardrail and other either minor or major design improvements
- Further assessment
- Retention of guardrail
Our work has found that guardrail could be removed at most sites. However, design improvements at many of these sites would also be desirable. This is likely to mirror the situation across the UK.
Another sort of barrier, often made using guardrailing, is the Access Control Barrier. Supposedly installed to control inappropriate use of paths they invariably filter out people who have every right to be there. Find out what we did with Access Control Barriers in York. (Posted 04/03/25)