The importance of having connected city streets
In the midst of the 2020 pandemic, many cities rediscovered the value of walkable and bike-friendly streets. They converted bus lanes into bike lanes in (1)___________ to the drop in the number of people taking public transport. Traffic cones, paint and signs were all that was required to repurpose street space in the short term. In the long term, however, the layout of a city’s street network is a permanent (2)___________ New bike lanes and pedestrian space can have little impact where a city’s layout is not up to the (3)___________ of providing connectivity.
In a disconnected, sprawling network (4)___________ by dead ends, cul-de-sacs and gated housing estates, a grocery store that lies only a hundred metres away when measured in a straight line, might be more than a kilometre by road. In contrast, streets arranged in a grid provide direct routes for pedestrians and cyclists. Street-network connectivity matters because it puts destinations within easy (5)___________ , and while this may matter very little to drivers, it definitely matters to those cycling or on foot.