Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes (pronounced{{fn|1}} {{IPA|}}) is a purpose-built, high technology city in the south east of England approximately 50 miles (80km) north of London and mid-way between Oxford and Cambridge. Although legally still a town (since city status in the United Kingdom is only possible through grant of Royal Charter), it was designed to be, and behaves as, a full city. Its administration is through the Borough of Milton Keynes, a unitary authority, of which it is the dominant part. (The Borough contains other towns in addition to Milton Keynes itself.)

Urban design: Layout of the New City

The city's layout was planned on a grid pattern of approximately 1 km interval, rather than the more conventional spider-web pattern seen elsewhere in older settlements. The major roads are drawn between communities, rather than through them: the major roads are known locally as grid roads and the spaces between them are known as grid squares. Consequently each grid square is a semi-autonomous community, making a unique collective of 100 urban spaces within the overall city milieu. The grid squares have a variety of development styles, ranging from normal urban development and industrial parks, to original rural and modern pseudo rural developments. Despite the clear success of this arrangement (in building and defining communities), English Partnership's proposal for the next phase of expansion is to abandon it in favour of large scale, mixed traffic, ribbon development. They believe that this is "sustainable" and that people will cease to use their cars in favour of public transport.

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Although the grid roads have conventional names such as Portway and Saxon Street, their original planning designations have stuck and locals are more comfortable with the shorthand "H5" and "V7" (where V is vertical or north/south and H is horizontal or east/west).

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The road that goes through the city centre, Midsummer Boulevard, is named because it is aligned so that the sun shines directly along it on midsummer each year.

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The flood plains of the Great Ouse and of its tributaries (the Ouzel and some brooks) have been protected as linear parks that run right through the city. The Grand Union Canal is another green route (and demonstrates the level topology of the city - there is just one minor lock in its entire 10 mile route through from Fenny Stratford to the Iron Trunk Aqueduct at Wolverton.

Related Topics:
Flood plain - Aqueduct - Wolverton

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The concepts that heavily influenced the design of the city are described in detail in article Urban planning - see especially "cells" (= grid squares) under Planning and aesthetics; but see also article Single-use zoning.

Related Topics:
Urban planning - Single-use zoning

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Cycling and walking

Milton Keynes has a 200km network of paths for pedestrians and cyclists called Redways, generally surfaced with red tarmac, which criss-cross the whole city. The majority of these Redways run next to the grid roads and local roads with underpasses or bridges where they intersect major roads. Others run through park land and along the flood plain of the Great Ouse and its tributaries. One of the aims of the Redways is to make travel for pedestrians and cyclists convenient, safe, pleasant and accident free, and this has broadly been achieved. However, the secluded routes of many of these redways has made some of them no-go areas after dark. Additionally, many longer-distance cycle commuters prefer to use the grid roads since much of the Redway system appears to have been designed for local leisure use.

Related Topics:
Redways - Flood plain - Great Ouse

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The national SUSTRANS cycle network runs to and through the city. The Swans Way long distance path does the same.

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