6 what is walkability

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http://www.pps.org/blog/whatiswalkabilityhowdoyoumeasureittakeawaysfromthisyears

trbmeeting/Recuperadoel10022013

What is Walkability? How Do You

Measure It? Take-Aways from This Years

TRB MeetingBy Project for Public Spaceson Feb 16, 2011 | 3 Comments and 0 Reactions

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Weve long said that one simple idea can transform the way we think about transportationplanning: streets should not simply be for moving cars, but should also be places for

people.

Recently some of PPS Transportation team attended the 90th annual meeting of the

Transportation Research Boardto see who else is in the field of transportation was thinking

about streets not only in terms of mobility but also as quality public spaces.

Here, PPS Pippa Brashearand Aurash Khawarzadtell us what they thought of the meeting

and share some new transportation resources.

The beauty of this waterfront path in Vancouver, Canada encourages walking and biking.

The theme of this years conference was Transportation, Livability, and Economic

Development in a Changing World, which made us think that there might be some focus

on walkability and place-making. It did not disappoint! Sessions devoted to pedestrians

and livability held their own among more traditional topics such as pavement

engineering, rail planning, and highway operations, among others.

What makes a place walkable?


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The consensus within the field of transportation is that having more people use non-motorized transportation more often is critical to sustainability, economic development, and

good public health.

Getting people walking and biking practicing active forms of transportation is essential

to finding solutions for some of the biggest challenges of our time. But while recognizingthe importance of walking and biking is one matter, actually getting more people to walk

and bike is another.

One critical first step in promoting walking and biking is to identify the factors thatinfluence peoples decisions to bike, walk, take transit, and/or drive. At PPS, we believe

that creating good places that rely on human-scale transportation is essential to getting

people out of their cars and onto their feet. Here are some things we learned from

presenters at TRB:

In Hawaii, research by professor Karl Kimshowed that a third of the variation in

pedestrian volumes in a busy area of Honolulu could be attributed toenvironmental quality(like cleanliness, landscaping, and amenities such as

seating, shade, and curb ramps, condition of street furniture, quality of pavingmaterials, sidewalk continuity, and various nuisance conditions including noise and

odors).

A studypresented in the same session by researchers at the Voorhees TransportationCenter at Rutgersshowed that proximity to transit raised the likelihood and

frequency that people walk.

In another session on urbanism, Wesely Marshal and Norm Garrick illustrated that

street network characteristics such as configuration, compactness, and connectivityinfluence levels of driving. Denser, gridded street networks correlate with lower

vehicle miles traveled, or VMT (which is one way to get an idea of how many

people chose to drive).

What the combination of this and other research suggests is that there are a variety of

factors that may influence peoples decisions to walk. The picture that emerged from the

conference was one that we at PPS have observed for some time: the factors affecting

peoples decision to walk, are the types of factors that make a good place: uses &

activities, access & linkages, comfort & image, and sociability.

When it comes to street life, it seems the presence of people depends on whether the street

provides access to the destinations where people want to be, whether or not the street is a

comfortable and legible place to be, and also whether there are other people around.


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One of the sessions we attended at the 90th Annual TRB Conference in Washington, D.C.

How to Quantify Walkability

A strong emphasis at this years conference, and within the field of transportation in

general, is not only on identifying what makes a street walkable but also on measuring andquantifying their impacts. At the conference, several techniques were discussed:

Walkscoreis perhaps the most widely known of these measures. It bases

walkability measures on proximity to key destinations. While the creators arecurrently piloting astreet smart Walk Score, which uses actual street distance to

destinations rather than as the crow flies distances, the score is still spaced on

mapped street routes and does not account for any urban design or environmentalfactors that might influence walkability, including the presence or absence of

sidewalks.

Sungjin Park, with the University of California, Berkeley,is creating a separatemeasurement tool that is a composite walkability index. The index measureswalkability through the integration of a walker perception survey and detailed

objective measurement of street urban design factors. This study emphasized the

value of users perceptions of things like safety, security and comfort in their

decision to walk.

Yet another assessment was presented by Michael Lowrey of University of Idaho,

who presented a paperon a novel way to assess street completeness based oncontext and public input, using a four dimensional audit for automobiles, transit

users, bicyclists, and pedestrians. The tool allows communities to rate how oriented

toward various modes of travel a street is or should be.

A variety of additional walking and connectivity measures were presented in poster

sessions at the conference including GIS tools to measure the benefit of newtransportation connections,performance measures for complete green streets, and

multi-modal level of service measurements.


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One very interesting study by Kevin Manaugh, a PhD student at McGill Universtiy, examined how well of a predictor of actual walking volumes four different

walkability measures (Walkscore, Walk Opoprtunities Index, Walkability Index by

Frank et. al. and the Pedshed Connectivity measure) were in a study of over 40,000home-based trips in Montreal. His findings demonstrated that all of the measure

were quite good indicators of actual walking. However, he also examined how wellthey performed across a variety of human social factors such as income and

demographics. What he found was that walkability indicators better predicted actual

walking volumes in more affluent neighborhoods.

Theres no one metric for walkability

It is exciting to see these emerging tools for measuring walkability, which not only educatecommunities about factors that influence good walking environments, but will also serve as

a practical tools for community involvement and planning.

We understand the demand for measures and metrics, and applaud these efforts. But weoffer a word of caution, what much of this research shows is that there is no one metric.

While there are key principles and more commonalities than differences, people and placesare unique, and walkability tools will need to adapt to community needs. We hope they

continue to evolve to reflect that demand.


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Ample bike parking in Portland, Oregon, makes it easier to make the choice to rely on

human-powered transportation.

Free Transportation Resources from the TRB

One of the things we took away from the conference was access to the TRBs portal of fulltransportation research articles and resourceswhich the TRB makes available through itswebsite. You can search for information on topics like pedestrians and bicyclists, public

transportation, security and emergencies, livability and economic development in a

changing world.

6 what is walkability

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