As promised, here is my #Beelines network planning masterclass (courtesy of @bricycle who created the slides)

Step 1. Print a plan of your area, ideally showing the road names. Your Council should be able to help with this. Then get a bunch of people together who know the area well (ideally people who live in different bits so they cover all the issues between them).

Step 2. Mark all the things that create severance in red. These include busy roads, railways, motorways, watercourses and, importantly, rat runs.

This creates a series of "cells". Inside the cells, there are nice quiet residential streets where it's nice to walk and cycle.

Step 3. Mark all the existing crossings that are good for both walking and cycling. This includes parallel crossings and Toucans. In most areas there won't be many!

This will show you how porous your area is, i.e. how easy it is for people to walk or cycle between cells

Step 4. Identify all the places where you need new crossings or to improve existing crossings to make them suitable for walking and cycling. The aim is to be able to get between ALL the cells.

Look how the map goes from mainly red and orange to mainly green!

Step 5. Connect the dots! Ideally in a sensible fashion to create the shortest routes between each dot. These become your quiet routes (or Beelines) through areas and, together, create your walking and cycling network.

Step 6. Identify any routes where you want to build protected cycle tracks on in BLACK. Your network plan should make it clear which routes these should be!

If you want to create some low traffic/filtered neighbourhoods (Waltham Forest stylee), go ahead and hatch them in black.

And that's all there is to it!

Also see for a more detailed explanation from the official #Beelines reporter @pootlers https://tinyurl.com/ycdqo2mo