House Prices?

"In home zone areas throughout the country house prices have risen from 10-58 per cent of their regional value and properties are selling faster than in areas outside the home zone." (Source, Bournmouth City Council)

Although a DIY BCR would not be as transformed as the street in the photo, the evidence from homezones suggests that our project could have a significantly positive effect on house prices. I believe that BCR's value as a street is let down by the current domination by cars in gardens and street. Far from facing a threat to the house prices, I think failure to do everything we can to redesign BCR to signal its role as a multi-function space would cause the most damage to house prices.

In addition, data from Victoria, Canada, suggests an increase in house values with every mph of lower traffic speed (see above posting)

And an integral part of the proposal is how we handle all those acres of very non-period tarmac.

A full-blown homezone costs £150K to £200K for a street like this, most of it going into repaving with non-tarmac materials. DIY Streets is all about exploring just how inexpensively a similar effect can be achieved without looking cruddy.

There's nothing inherently flaky about painted roads (pardon the pun). The lace-brick paint pattern that I showed from Providence Rhode Island is in the middle of a very sensitive 18th/19th century part of the campus of Brown University, where the ferocious Providence Preservation Society is heavily involved. Many streets in French villages use painted or otherwise coloured road surfaces to signal a different form of use other than just cars and parking.



I think the whole paint issue hinges entirely on quality of materials and design. I hope fear of uncertainty doesn't end up ruling our thinking about this before we've had a chance to give it more thought and discussion. At a recent hamlet meeting, the best way forward to resolve the paint issue emerged as a testable paint trial. This way forward would significant logistical and financial issues that need to be resolved.

Any further thoughts on either side? Please keep this thread on subject, or post a new topic in a separate post.

Another 'listed' cycle rack

Here's a cycle rack composed of cast iron pieces I already have. The arch I bought from the Woodstock Road Baptist Church four years ago when they removed it. The railings currently form an ad-hoc cycle rack in my front garden (a bit beat up right now). The brown trough/trellis planter at the northern end is readily available for £31 (it's about a metre tall). This design would create a nice profile on the street while offering parking for four cycles and have a planter to buffer the traffic. It would probably cost no more than £400 to cover what I paid for the materials (around £100), and to put it together and install...the same price as a three hoop ordinary cycle rack. Kate Arnold-Foster has raised the prospect of BCR possibly installing the country's first 'listed' cycle racks.

Prefab Cycle rack ideas

Amongst the pre-fabs, my favourite style is by a US company called DERO although I dont have prices for the UK. This may not be the best type of rack for BCR as is, since each one would individually have to be drilled into the ground. The other prefab is the 'toast-rack' or 'hoop' style. These are less inspired, but might be the preferred choice of an individual hamlet if they dont want to go to the trouble of commissioning a bespoke cycle rack.

"Period" cycle rack design

I'd like to consider how we could use bits of architectural salvage iron to create cycle racks with more imagination than the off-the-shelf stuff. Here's a piece that I think could be incorporated into a terrific cycle rack that would also work as a bollard. They're from Brighton seafront. They're being sold as a lot of 11 for £1150. With some engineering work to transform them into cycle racks, that would work out to a price comparable to the cheapo 3-hoop cycle racks. If other hamlets are interested in exploring a consistent cycle rack design for the street, this might be our answer. Any thoughts?