I’ve lived in a fair few cities in England and overseas and been in Southampton now for 7years. I’ve never experienced a city that is so utterly designed for car users and no one else. My bus service (living off Peartree Ave just 10mins from city centre) finishes at 7pm and doesn’t exist on a Sunday! It’s like a village service in the middle of the countryside. There are no buses for me to get close to either station. Cycle lanes are disjointed and often non existent-the only nice ones being through parks away from traffic. The city centre is dominated by cars and the lack of awareness of many residents of how much more enjoyable, pretty and pleasant cities are that are much more widely pedestrianised is astonishing. The lack of equality in terms of air pollution, access to green spaces, healthy active travel options is a serious concern but something car users here don’t seem to care about. I also have never experienced traffic jams anywhere as badly. We have to provide so many better and diverse public transport options to get residents out of their cars! Southampton has an amazing mix of habitats and green/blue open spaces, plus built heritage, but we can’t experience it properly or sit outside in a buzzing pedestrianised atmosphere (cafes/bars etc) as there are cars almost everywhere. If you believed the false rhetoric on local news posts about pedestrianisation, you’d think it kills cities. But the data (and our own experiences!) show how much it improves them!
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