Thoughts on lessons to learn from @gateshead's experience implementing emergency covid walking/cycling measures this week [Thread]:
1. Make sure you communicate clearly, including:
a) get the graphics you show the public right.
b) put the detailed construction drawings online.

(so that interested professionals can comment and/or help explain the measures to the public)
c) talk clearly about the air pollution and inactivity health crises and climate breakdown impacts of traffic and any other reasons why changes are necessary. Use infographics and stats

especially stats that measure local impact - eg "36% of households in Gateshead don't have a car" "Air pollution causes 40,000 early deaths per year in the UK; that equates to about 120 people per year in Gateshead"
d) make sure signage is present on the road network warning of..

the changes for at least a week before work starts. Take photos of this signage and post online, so people can see this has been done.
e) where possible change the permanent signage or install the temporary diversion signage before roadworks start, so re-routing congestion and...

roadwork congestion don't all hit at once and compound one another, and aren't conflated in users' minds.
2) Don't make multiple large changes at once; if you do and there's significant disruption, each change will be blamed for *all* of the disruption and temptation to roll back

*everything will be high*. Also, risk of something going wrong is increased with multiple changes; this will harden public opinion against *any* and *all* changes. Being able to point to small successful interventions is better for future change than big, disruptive ones...

Small interventions can be rolled out quickly one after the other, so can be faster and smoother than large interventions that are in danger of being aborted before they're properly implemented...

From an evidence based design POV, it also means you can't tell which changes have produced which effects; scientific method, my dude. One at a time with evidence collected before & after each change, pls. We have the wonderful @urbanobserv tech available to us. Let's use it...

3) Pay careful attention to the impact of any roadworks needed to install the changes, not just the impact of the changes in their 'final' condition. Any congestion caused by temp roadworks to put the proposals in place will be blamed on the proposals themselves...

Be clear & honest about any expected temporary disruption due to roadworks in advance and communicate that well.

4) Community engagement to establish people's desire to walk and cycle more, concerns about areas blighted by major traffic routes etc can be collected to support changes. Genuine engagement helps people to accept changes even if they don't personally support them...

Reporting of engagement needs to tell us a story - you told us this, this and this, so we are proposing to do x, y & z. Just announcing changes with little context doesn't help people understand the decision making process.

(I know this has been done in a rush under emergency measures, but I also know Gateshead has done lots of general community engagement on the town centre & could've reported some of that to provide context to proposals. If it's helped inform the decisions, it should be shared).

Reporting on engagement is really important because otherwise social media and petitions give a really distorted view of public feeling on an issue. Loss aversion psychology means we're v motivated & vocal protecting summat we don't want to lose, but not summat we want to gain.

(Also, traffic generally and congestion in particular are highly stressful experiences-more likelihood of a heart attack after driving than after exercise! So not surprising ppl who've just been properly stressed out want to vent very emotively about disruption...

whereas ppl thinking "ooh, i might try that cycle route" or "yay, I can walk from home into town now" don't get in touch with the council to communicate that.

5) As a society, we need to get much better at communicating the scale of change required in the next ten years to minimise climate breakdown.

Props to @gateshead for being bold. The above is not meant to be negative criticism, but an attempt to glean as many lessons as possible from the experiment, to inform future decisions.

/ENDS

(For now, until I think of something else I meant to say #AndAnotherThing).