WALKABILITY AS AN URBAN DESIGN PROBLEM (original) (raw)
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Walking is a more sustainable transport mode, and governments around the world are trying to deliver highly walkable areas to their people. Due to its importance, walkability has been a research topic in recent years. Vast empirical studies have reported evidence related to the influence of built environment on walking as a major physical activity. Considering the recent literature, this study developed a framework to quantify walkability by applying a set of indicators related to built environment. The indicators were normalised, weighted and integrated into an overall walkability index. The research was conducted on Chaharbagh Street, which is a major and ancient street in the Isfahan metropolitan area, Iran. The proposed framework would be helpful in investigations of whether a specific area is an appropriate option for a car-free plan based on its built environment features. The outcome of the study could be applied to understand issues related to pedestrian infrastructure and t...
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Neighbourhood walkability provides important insights if an environment encourages (or discourages) walking. One of the most commonly used approaches to measure neighbourhood walkability is the walkability index. Walkability index is constructed as a composite measure of variables that are considered to influence walking. Typically, these include the characteristics of the built environment, the quality of the walking environment (safety and security) and pedestrian characteristics. However, there is a continued lack of a systematic understanding on the association between built environment variables with walking, which has important implications to effective planning and policymaking. By systematically reviewing publications between year 2000 and 2016, this paper examines the various factors of the built environment associated with walking in developing the walkability index, their combination, and the methods adopted to construct as well as evaluate the index. Results show that th...
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A city's walkability is a measure of how friendly, safe and attractive a city is for walking within it. Moreover, a well-designed walkable environment can become a place where many social, political, and other important urban activities occur. Following the appearance of motorised vehicles, cars have occupied urban spaces, with many city structures changing according to motor vehicles' requirements rather than pedestrians. Regardless of the many benefits that cars bring to people’s lives, the overuse of cars has had many social, physical, and economic consequences. Based on the reviewed literature, this research analyses the relationship between the built environment and walking, behavioural factors and travel mode choices, walking as a means of socialisation and as a transportation mode. In addition to these factors, four main groups of criteria contributing to increased walking rate are identified: lifestyle, urban design factors, personal and locational factors. Each of t...
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The research into walkability has two common approaches to the variables: one depends on measuring the spatial configuration of street networks and the other depends on operationalizing urban design qualities such as imageability, enclosure, transparency and complexity by measuring the actual physical environment. Environmental perception has often been a subject in research into wayfinding behaviour, but not so much in research into walkability. In this paper, we argue that it is possible to obtain a more accurate walkability forecast by comparing spatial configuration measures with the environmental perceptions of pedestrians to evaluate their effects on pedestrian movement levels. In order to do this comparison, three case areas were selected, all of which are central retail districts in İstanbul, and which have a similar socio-economic user profile, similar public and private transportation links with the city and a similar relationship with the waterfront. All the three case ar...
Journal of Transport and Land Use
The relationship between the built environment and walking behavior has been explored extensively. However, little research has been done to either differentiate between walking for transport and walking as activity or that applies urban design tools to walkability improvement based on environment-walking associations. Therefore, this study constructed perceived environment walkability factors to replace unidentified physical environments that varied among individuals and examined their associations with walking to a destination (purposive walking) and walking as activity (discursive walking), using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results suggest that residential density, land-use mix diversity, and pedestrian/traffic safety were associated with purposive walking while aesthetics and crime safety were associated with discursive walking. Land-use mix access and street connectivity were common correlates of both walking patterns. This study also explored how to apply...
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Walking has always been one of the basic transportation techniques in the world. Inthe middle of the second half of the 20th century, automatic methods weredeveloped, especially private cars. A state of excessive dependence on mechanicaltransportation has been advanced. More recently, the idea of revitalizing walking asone of the urban mobility ways has begun to increase. Both research and practicework is currently looking for ways of urban rehabilitation to encourage people to gowalking and cycling. Indeed walkability is essential in implementing sustainable urbanplanning; it helps to connect the community while providing alternatives toautomotive transport. Walkability has been studied on various levels, various places,and with regards to concepts and factors. Thus this paper aims to study walkabilitythrough answering four questions: what, why, how and where? In other words, whatis walkability? Why is it beneficial? How could it be implemented in terms ofrehabilitation of urban ar...
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Walking has been shown to be a healthy and eco-friendly activity. Over the last decade, the study of different walkable places has increased and has been encouraged because walkability is a unique attribute of each setting. With the Neighbourhood as a primary frame of reference this paper summarises and compares walkability studies that have taken place in different contexts, within different cities and countries. A bibliometric study was done to show the spread of walkability studies in academic literature. Selected studies were then summarised to highlight their theoretical premise, methodology and results. The studies were then compared based on their scales, objective assessment of the environment and assessment of pedestrian perception. The study provides an overview of the approaches and methods that can be taken to assess walkability in different Neighborhoods.
Exploring the Relationship Between Health and Walkability
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This study aimed to broaden Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by including healthy urban performance attributes of the residential neighbourhoods as an additional predictor for walking behaviour. First, the study reviewed the literature on TPB and walkability in residential environments, and then constructed a TPB model based on walkability to set the hypotheses. The study explored the correlations among walkability attributes and walkability behaviour through a survey conducted with residents in Ankara, Turkey (n= 220). To analyse the data, first confirmatory factor analysis and later, structural equation modelling were used. The findings of the study highlighted two aspects of planning for a walkable neighbourhood: (i) a walkability model based on the three constructs of TPB should not neglect the measured and experienced urban performance; (ii) utilizing pedestrian environment for walking as fully as possible requires a collaborative and an experiential approach as well as a multi-parameter decision-making process.
Making the World’s Growing Cities into a pedestrian friendly space is one of the most important needs of the present era. Improved walkability helps in making the city environmentally and socially sustainable. Sustainability is the integral part of a typical Indian city. This paper discusses the shortcomings in the pedestrian experience of a typical city. How can the pedestrian experience be improved? How can the walkability quotient of a city be increased? Poor infrastructure forces people to abandon walking and cycling. The main objective of this paper is to find-out ways of inducing physical qualities that influence pedestrian movements in an urban area. If streets and junctions act as public spaces rather than just traffic routes, they become more convenient