In urban planning, walkability is the accessibility of amenities by foot. [1] It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport corridors designed for maximum vehicle throughput. Instead, it should be relatively complete livable spaces that serve a variety of uses, users, and transportation modes and reduce the need for cars for travel.
The term "walkability" was primarily invented in the 1960s due to Jane Jacobs' revolution in urban studies. In recent years, walkability has become popular because of its health, economic, and environmental benefits. [2] It is an essential concept of sustainable urban design. [3] Factors influencing walkability include the presence or absence and quality of footpaths, sidewalks or other pedestrian rights-of-way, traffic and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety, among others. [4]
One proposed definition for walkability is: "The extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area". [5] A study attempted to comprehensively and objectively measure subjective qualities of the urban street environment. Using ratings from an expert panel, it was possible to measure five urban design qualities in terms of physical characteristics of streets and their edges: imageability, enclosure, human scale, transparency and complexity. [6] Walkability relies on the interdependencies between density, mix, and access in synergy. The urban DMA (Density, Mix, Access) is a set of synergies between the ways cities concentrate people and buildings, how they mix different people and activities, and the access networks used to navigate through them. [7]
These factors cannot be taken singularly. Rather than an ideal functional mix, there is a mix of mixes and interdependencies between formal, social, and functional mixes. Likewise, walk-able access cannot be reduced to any singular measure of connectivity, permeability, or catchment but is dependent on destinations and geared to metropolitan access through public transit nodes. While DMA is based on walkability measures, popular "walk score" or "rate my street" websites offer more metrics to connect urban morphology with better environmental and health outcomes.
Density is an interrelated assemblage of buildings, populations, and street life. It is a crucial property of walkability because it concentrates more people and places within walkable distances. [8] There is difficulty determining density due to populations oscillating from the suburbs to the urban center. [7] Moreover, measures of density can differ dramatically for different morphologies and building typologies. Density may be conflated with building height, contributing to the confusion.
The ratio between the floor area and the site area is generally known as the Floor Area Ratio (FAR, also called Plot Ratio and Floor Space Index). For example, a ten-story building on 10% of the site has the same floor area as a single-story building with 100% site coverage. [7] Secondly, the measure of dwellings/hectare is common but particularly blunt. It depends on the functional mix, household size, and dwelling size in relation to building or population densities. Larger houses will produce higher building densities for the same population, and larger households will lead to higher populations for the same number of dwellings. In functionally mixed neighborhoods, housing will be just one component of the mix and therefore not a measure of building or population density. The census-based density of residents/hectare is another common measure, but it does not include those who work there.
This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. In particular, the use of "we" in multiple places outside of quotes ("we become", "we suggest"), and confusing language "mix of mixes".(February 2024) |
Functional mix, like density, shortens the distances between wherever we are and where we need to be. The live/work/visit triangle constructs a field of possible relations between three primary functions that resonate with what economists have often called reproduction, production, and exchange (incorporating social exchange). [2] They also identify primary relations between people and urban space – we become "residents", "workers", and "visitors", respectively, in different locations in everyday life. The key shift here lies in focusing on the mix rather than their functions. Such mapping offers an empirical understanding of the mix that enables us to expose different kinds and levels of a mix. It is tempting to construct an index for an ideal mix measured by the degree of lightness as the mix approaches the center of the triangle. However, we[ who? ] suggest that the best cities comprise a mix of mixes. Our attention should focus instead on the corners of the triangle – the dysfunctional parts of cities where one can- not walk between living, work, and visiting functions.
While the functional mix is crucial to any approach to walkability, it is important to note here that function is itself but one dimension of the urban mix, including the formal and social mix. A formal mix emerges from how a city produces different plot sizes, which are linked to different building styles, floor plate sizes, and building heights. [7] While a small-grain urban fabric is linked to a more mixed neighborhood, large grains also need because some functions rely on those large grains to become part of the mix. The social mix has to do with how a good city brings together people of different ages, abilities, ethnicities, and social classes. Cities are places where differences rub together in walkable public spaces, and this mix of differences is fundamental to the production of urban vitality. Again, there is no single index for mix in its impact on walkability. The concept is fundamentally relational, both between functions and the formal and social mix sustaining them.
The access networks of a city enable and constrain pedestrian flows; it is the capacity or possibility to walk. Like density and mix, these are properties embodied in urban form and facilitate more efficient pedestrian flows. Access networks are also multi-modal and need to be understood from the perspective of those who choose between modes of walking, cycling, public transport, and cars. Public transport trips are generally coupled with walkable access to the transit stop. Walking will primarily be chosen for up to 10 minutes if it is the fastest mode and other factors are equal. Walking has the advantage that it is a much more predictable trip time than public transport or cars, where we have to allow for delays caused by poor service, congestion, and parking. [9]
Major infrastructural factors include access to mass transit, presence and quality of footpaths, buffers to moving traffic (planter strips, on-street parking or bike lanes) and pedestrian crossings, aesthetics, nearby local destinations, air quality, shade or sun in appropriate seasons, street furniture, traffic volume and speed. [4] [10] and wind conditions. Walkability is also examined based on the surrounding built environment. Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero's five D's of the built environment—density, diversity, design, destination accessibility, and distance to transit—heavily influence an area's walkability. [11] Combinations of these factors influence an individual's decision to walk. [12]
Before cars and bicycles were mass-produced, walking was the main way to travel. It was the only way to get from place to place for much of human history. [13] In the 1920s, economic growth led to increased automobile manufacturing. Cars were also becoming more affordable, leading to the rise of the automobile during the Post–World War II economic expansion. [14] The detrimental effects of automobile emissions soon led to public concern over pollution. Alternatives, including improved public transportation and walking infrastructure, have attracted more attention from planners and policymakers. There is a correlation between the white exodus from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban regions with the growth of an automobile-centric urban planning.[ citation needed ]
Jane Jacobs' classic book The Death and Life of Great American Cities [15] remains one of the most influential books in the history of American city planning, especially concerning the future developments of the walkability concept. She coined the terms "social capital", "mixed primary uses", and "eyes on the street", which were adopted professionally in urban design, sociology, and many other fields.
While there has been a push towards better walkability in cities in recent years, there are still many obstacles that need to be cleared to achieve more complete and cohesive communities where residents won't have to travel as far to get to where they need to go. For example, the average time it has taken American commuters to get to work has actually increased from 25 to 27.6 minutes,[ citation needed ] so much is still to be done if walkability is to be realized and a lessened reliance on cars comes into fruition.
Walkability indices have been found to correlate with both lower Body Mass Index (BMI) and high levels of physical activity of local populations. [16] [17] Physical activity can prevent chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression, and osteoporosis. [18] Thus for instance, an increase in neighborhood Walk Score has linked with both better Cardio metabolic risk profiles [19] and a decreased risk of heart-attacks. [20] The World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research released a report that new developments should be designed to encourage walking, on the grounds that walking contributes to a reduction of cancer. [21] A further justification for walkability is founded upon evolutionary and philosophical grounds, contending that gait is important to the cerebral development in humans. [22]
In addition, walkable neighborhoods have been linked to higher levels of happiness, health, trust, and social connections in comparison with more car-oriented places. [23]
In contrast to walkable environments, less walkable environments are associated with higher BMIs and higher rates of obesity. This is particularly true for the more car-dependent environments of US suburban sprawl. [24] Compared to walking and biking, driving as a commuting option is associated with higher levels of obesity. [25] There are well-established links between the design of an urban area (including its walkability and land use policy) and health outcomes for that community. [26]
Due to discrepancies between residents' health in inner city neighborhoods and suburban neighborhoods with similar walkability measures, further research is needed to find additional built environment factors in walkability indices. [27]
Walkability has also been found to have many socioeconomic benefits, including accessibility, cost savings both to individuals and to the public, [28] student transport (which can include walking buses), increased efficiency of land use, increased livability, economic benefits from improved public health, and economic development, among others. [29] [30] The benefits of walkability are best guaranteed if the entire system of public corridors is walkable - not limited to certain specialized routes. More sidewalks and increased walkability can promote tourism and increase property value. [31]
In recent years, the demand for housing in a walkable urban context has increased. The term "Missing Middle Housing" as coined by Daniel Parolek of Opticos Design, Inc., [32] refers to multi-unit housing types (such as duplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, and mansion apartments not bigger than a large house), which are integrated throughout most walkable Pre-1940s neighborhoods, but became much less common after World War II, hence the term "missing." These housing types are often integrated into blocks with primarily single-family homes, to provide diverse housing choices and generate enough density to support transit and locally-serving commercial amenities.
Auto-focused street design diminishes walking and needed "eyes on the street" [15] : 35 provided by the steady presence of people in an area. Walkability increases social interaction, mixing of populations, the average number of friends and associates where people live, reduced crime (with more people walking and watching over neighborhoods, open space and main streets), increased sense of pride, and increased volunteerism.
Socioeconomic factors contribute to willingness to choose walking over driving. Income, age, race, ethnicity, education, household status, and having children in a household all influence walking travel. [33]
One of benefits of improving walkability is the decrease of the automobile footprint in the community. Carbon emissions can be reduced if more people choose to walk rather than drive or use public transportation, so proponents of walkable cities describe improving walkability as an important tool for adapting cities to climate change. The benefits of less emissions include improved health conditions and quality of life, less smog, and less of a contribution to global climate change. [34]
Further, cities that developed under guiding philosophies like walkability typically see lower levels of noise pollution in their neighborhoods. This goes beyond just making quieter communities to live, less noise pollution can also mean greater biodiversity. Studies have shown that noise pollution can disrupt certain senses that animals rely on to find food, reproduce, avoid predators, etc. which can weaken ecosystems in an already human dominated environment. [35] [36] Society depends on these ecosystem for many ecological services such as provisioning, regulation, cultural/tourism, and supporting services [37] and any degradation of these services can go beyond just affecting the aesthetic of a neighborhood or community but can have serious implications for livability and wellbeing on entire regions.
Cities that have a relatively walkability score also tend to have a higher concentration of green spaces which facilitate a more walkable city. These green spaces can assist in regulatory ecological services such as flooding, improving the quality of both air and water, carbon sequestration, etc. all while also improving the attractiveness of the city or town in which it's implemented in. [38]
Many communities have embraced pedestrian mobility as an alternative to older building practices that favor automobiles. This shift includes a belief that dependency on cars is ecologically unsustainable. Automobile-oriented environments engender dangerous conditions for motorists and pedestrians and are generally bereft of aesthetics. [41] A type of zoning called Form-based coding is a tool that some American cities, like Cincinnati, are employing to improve walkability. [42] [43] The COVID-19 pandemic gave birth to proposals for radical change in the organization of the town, in particular Barcelona, being the elimination of the car and consequent pedestrianization of the whole city one of the critical elements, and proposing an inversion of the concept of the sidewalk. [44] [45] [46]
There are several ways to make a community more walkable:
One way of assessing and measuring walkability is to undertake a walking audit. An established and widely used walking audit tool is PERS (Pedestrian Environment Review System) which has been used extensively in the UK. [51]
A simple way to determine the walkability of a block, corridor or neighborhood is to count the number of people walking, lingering and engaging in optional activities within a space. [52] This process is a vast improvement upon pedestrian level of service (LOS) indicators, recommended within the Highway Capacity Manual. [53] However it may not translate well to non-Western locations where the idea of "optional" activities may be different. [54] In any case, the diversity of people, and especially the presence of children, seniors and people with disabilities, denotes the quality, completeness and health of a walkable space. [55]
A number of commercial walkability scores also exist:
A newly developing concept is the transit time map (sometimes called a transit shed map), which is a type of isochrone map. [59] These are maps (often online and interactive) that display the areas of a metropolis which can be reached from a given starting point, in a given amount of travel time. Such maps are useful for evaluating how well-connected a given address is to other possible urban destinations, or conversely, how large a territory can quickly get to a given address. The calculation of transit time maps is computationally intensive, and considerable work is being done on more efficient algorithms for quickly producing such maps. [60]
To be useful, the production of a transit time map must take into consideration detailed transit schedules, service frequency, time of day, and day of week. [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] Moreover, the recent development of computer vision and street view imagery has provided significant potential to automatically assess spaces for pedestrians from the ground level. [66]
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.
A sidewalk, pavement, footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, or footway is a path along the side of a road. Usually constructed of concrete, pavers, brick, stone, or asphalt, it is designed for pedestrians. A sidewalk is normally higher than the roadway, and separated from it by a kerb. There may also be a planted strip between the sidewalk and the roadway and between the roadway and the adjacent land.
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically.
Bicycle-friendly policies and practices help some people feel more comfortable about traveling by bicycle with other traffic. The level of bicycle-friendliness of an environment can be influenced by many factors including town planning and cycling infrastructure decisions. A stigma towards people who ride bicycles and fear of cycling is a social construct that needs to be fully understood when promoting a bicycle friendly culture.
The car-free movement is a broad, informal, emergent network of individuals and organizations, including social activists, urban planners, transportation engineers, environmentalists and others, brought together by a shared belief that large and/or high-speed motorized vehicles are too dominant in most modern cities. The goal of the movement is to create places where motorized vehicle use is greatly reduced or eliminated, by converting road and parking space to other public uses and rebuilding compact urban environments where most destinations are within easy reach by other means, including walking, cycling, public transport, personal transporters, and mobility as a service.
A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design.
In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between dense, compact urban form and public transport use. In doing so, TOD aims to increase public transport ridership by reducing the use of private cars and by promoting sustainable urban growth.
A living street is a street designed with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind by providing enriching and experiential spaces. Living streets also act as social spaces, allowing children to play and encouraging social interactions on a human scale, safely and legally. Living streets consider all pedestrians granting equal access to elders and those who are disabled. These roads are still available for use by motor vehicles; however, their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorized transport. The reduction of motor vehicle dominance creates more opportunities for public transportation.
A walking bus is a form of student transport for young schoolchildren who, chaperoned typically by two adults, walk. The crocodile may walk to school along a set route, with some similarities to a school bus route, with designated "bus stops" and "pick up times" at which they pick up and "drop off" children. In Britain a group of schoolchildren walking together in a long line of pairs on an activity without stops or pickups, escorted by teachers, has been referred to as a crocodile since at least 1870.
Complete streets is a transportation policy and design approach that requires streets to be planned, designed, operated and maintained to enable safe, convenient and comfortable travel and access for users of all ages and abilities regardless of their mode of transportation. Complete Streets allow for safe travel by those walking, cycling, driving automobiles, riding public transportation, or delivering goods.
Car dependency is the concept that some city layouts cause cars to be favoured over alternate forms of transportation, such as bicycles, public transit, and walking.
In urban design, permeability and connectivity are terms that describe the extent to which urban forms permit movement of people or vehicles in different directions. The terms are often used interchangeably, although differentiated definitions also exist. Permeability is generally considered a positive attribute of an urban design, as it permits ease of movement and avoids severing neighbourhoods. Urban forms which lack permeability, e.g. those severed by arterial roads, or with many long culs-de-sac, are considered to discourage movement on foot and encourage longer journeys by car. There is some empirical research evidence to support this view.
A pedestrian village is a compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or town with a mixed-use village center. Shared-use lanes for pedestrians and those using bicycles, Segways, wheelchairs, and other small rolling conveyances that do not use internal combustion engines. Generally, these lanes are in front of the houses and businesses, and streets for motor vehicles are always at the rear. Some pedestrian villages might be nearly car-free with cars either hidden below the buildings, or on the boundary of the village. Venice, Italy is essentially a pedestrian village with canals. Other examples of a pedestrian village include Giethoorn village located in the Dutch province of Overijssel, Netherlands, Mont-Tremblant Pedestrian Village located beside Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada, and Culdesac Tempe in Tempe, Arizona.
Montreal has a developed transport infrastructure network, which includes well-developed air, road, rail, and maritime links to the rest of Canada, as well as the United States and the rest of the world. Local public transport includes a metro system, buses, ferry services and cycling infrastructure.
Active mobility, soft mobility, active travel, active transport or active transportation is the transport of people or goods, through non-motorized means, based around human physical activity. The best-known forms of active mobility are walking and cycling, though other modes include running, rowing, skateboarding, kick scooters and roller skates. Due to its prevalence, cycling is sometimes considered separately from the other forms of active mobility.
Healthy community design is planning and designing communities that make it easier for people to live healthy lives. Healthy community design offers important benefits:
The compact city or city of short distances is an urban planning and urban design concept, which promotes relatively high residential density with mixed land uses. It is based on an efficient public transport system and has an urban layout which – according to its advocates – encourages walking and cycling, low energy consumption and reduced pollution. A large resident population provides opportunities for social interaction as well as a feeling of safety in numbers and "eyes on the street". It is also arguably a more sustainable urban settlement type than urban sprawl because it is less dependent on the car, requiring less infrastructure provision.
Sustainable urbanism is both the study of cities and the practices to build them (urbanism), that focuses on promoting their long term viability by reducing consumption, waste and harmful impacts on people and place while enhancing the overall well-being of both people and place. Well-being includes the physical, ecological, economic, social, health and equity factors, among others, that comprise cities and their populations. In the context of contemporary urbanism, the term cities refers to several scales of human settlements from towns to cities, metropolises and mega-city regions that includes their peripheries / suburbs / exurbs. Sustainability is a key component to professional practice in urban planning and urban design along with its related disciplines landscape architecture, architecture, and civil and environmental engineering. Green urbanism and ecological urbanism are other common terms that are similar to sustainable urbanism, however they can be construed as focusing more on the natural environment and ecosystems and less on economic and social aspects. Also related to sustainable urbanism are the practices of land development called Sustainable development, which is the process of physically constructing sustainable buildings, as well as the practices of urban planning called smart growth or growth management, which denote the processes of planning, designing, and building urban settlements that are more sustainable than if they were not planned according to sustainability criteria and principles.
Active design is a set of building and planning principles that promote physical activity. Active design in a building, landscape or city design integrates physical activity into the occupants' everyday routines, such as walking to the store or making a photocopy. Active design involves urban planners, architects, transportation engineers, public health professionals, community leaders and other professionals in building places that encourage physical activity as an integral part of life. While not an inherent part of active design, most designers employing "active design" are also concerned with the productive life of their buildings and their building's ecological footprint.
The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city. This approach aims to reduce car dependency, promote healthy and sustainable living, and improve wellbeing and quality of life for city dwellers.
...there is zero net cost to the economy of switching from cars to walking and cycling .... as the cost of provision of improved walking and cycling infrastructure is expected to be substantially outweighed by the benefits through reduced cost of travel, better air quality, lower congestion and improved health and wellbeing.