An Activity-Based Approach to assessing Street-space Allocation: Insights from School Streets in Ghent

The increasing reliance on car-centric planning over the years has significantly undermined the accessibility and safety of vulnerable groups, especially children. The conflicts arising out of contested street ownership have posed further challenges for equitable allocation of street space in many cities. In response, the city of Ghent introduced School Streets with a view to creating more space for children, by guaranteeing them safe access, ease of active mobility and congestion and pollution free school environments. Using Ghent’s school streets as a case study, this thesis critically examines the interplay of the allocated space with its use and societal perceptions – i.e. the Interpreted Space. Grounded in Henry Lefebvre’s Space triad, The Interpreted Space is defined as a combination of the Lived and Perceived Space which are calculated separately using two distinct methodologies. The thesis develops an ‘activity-based approach’ combining ethnographic observations and stakeholder perspectives to analyse the societal interpretation of the school streets. The mixed-methods data collection process focuses on documenting on-street activities –diverging from existing approaches that ask for distribution of street space among different travel modes. The findings reveal that reorganisation of space on school streets in favour of biking and walking significantly leads to higher adoption of active travel modes for school trips. Alternatively, temporary vehicle restrictions – a model adopted by many cities globally – yielded relatively limited benefits, as they failed to recognize the multifunctional role of streets as safe spaces for travel, play and social interaction.