The concept of Walkability

Walkability is “the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by provid-ing for pedestrian comfort and safety, connectprovid-ing people with varied destinations within a reasonable amount of time and effort, and offering visual interest in journeys throughout the network” (South-worth, 2005:148). A walkable network comprises six important attributes namely: connectivity of path network (both locally and in the larger urban setting); linkage with other modes (bus, streetcar, subway, train); Fine grained and varied land use patterns (especially for local serving uses); safety (both from traffic and social crime); quality of path (including width, paving, landscaping, signing, and lighting); and path context (including street design, visual interest of the built environment, trans-parency, spatial definition, landscape, and overall explorability) (ibid). However, walkability is con-sidered in differently in developed and developing countries:

Cervero and Kockelman (1997) argue that the concept of “walkability” arose out of researches on transportation in USA in the late 1990s in which dimensions of the built environment related to ‘walk-ing for transport⁴’ were considered. These were thought to include: Street connectivity; residential density and mixed land use. Street connectivity meant the number of intersections in a given area;

while residential density referred to the number of people living close together in a given area and

4 Walking for transportation includes walking to or from school or work, and walking for errands such as shop-ping

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mixed land use, simply meant a mixture of residential, commercial, retail and recreational land uses in such a way that individuals could walk for multiple purposes like going for errands, for school and work (Moudon et al., 2006). The typical examples of walkable cities include: New York in the USA, Hong Kong in China and Paris in France. Since its inception in the transportation field, the concept of walkability has been adopted by physical activity and public health researchers, practitioners and pol-icy makers. As walkability was adopted on the worldwide stage, features like bpol-icycle lanes, public transit and foot paths become more important. However, transportation researcher focused mostly on built up environment features mapped with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), while physical activity, researchers developed tools like Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale which as-sessed about perceptions about the built environment to include components such as aesthetics and safety that would be related to overall physical activity (Saelens, Sallis & Frank, 2003).

Paulo (2012) has also argued that “walkability” has been probably brought to the debate by Chris Bradshaw, a city planner expert in 1993 following a property tax rise in Ottawa (1992) in connection with the road infrastructure improvements. Following such changes the landlords and local shop own-ers claimed that most people in their neighbourhood walked in their daily trips instead of driving (Paulo, 2012; Ghidini, 2011; Bradshaw, 1993). Owing to the fact that the majority walked instead of driving, the landowners and local shop owners felt had less need for the road infrastructure expansion and therefore should not pay extra tax. By that time, Bradshaw had then proposed an index to rate the

“walkability” of the neighbourhoods. It was believed that such index could be used not only to calcu-late the tax rates applicable to each neighbourhood, but also could prove itself useful for homebuyers, providing a reading on the walking conditions of a neighbourhood that included the assessment of the local safety conditions, and transit coverage. From a conceptual point of view, Bradshaw (1993) de-fined walkability as a “quality of place” that constituted four basic characteristics:

i. A "foot-friendly" man-made, physical micro-environment: wide-levelled sidewalks, small in-tersections, narrow streets, lots of litter containers, good lighting, and an absence of obstruc-tions;

ii. A full range of useful, active destinations within walking distance: shops, services, employ-ment, professional offices, recreation, libraries, etc;

iii. A natural environment that moderates the extremes of weather - wind, rain, sunlight - while providing the refreshment of the absence of man's overuse. It has no excessive noise, air pol-lution, or the dirt, stains, and grime of motor traffic; and

iv. A local culture that is social and diverse. This increases contact between people and the con-ditions for social and economic commerce.

It is further argued by Paulo (2012) that assessment of Bradshaw’s index was suggested to bear a qualitative ranking of 1 (best situation) to 4 (worst situation) in 10 different categories, which were in fact very different in terms of their nature. These included: the population density; the number of parking places; the chances of meeting someone while walking; the age at which a child would be allowed to walk alone; the women's rating of neighbourhood safety; the responsiveness of transit ser-vice; the number of neighbourhood "places of significance"; the area covered by parks and the side-walk availability. The final score was to be divided by 20, producing an index between 0, 45 (best) and 2, 00 (worst).

From these inspiring efforts to define and measuring walkability, many researchers have been “grap-pling with the concept of walkability – what is it, how to measure it and what it might mean for the design of the cities” (Forsyth and Southworth 2008). As a result, walkability’ and ‘walking’ are the terms that have become common in the fields of engineering, planning and health, partly because walking is widely recognised as having benefits for the social, health and economic well-being of a

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society (Abley and Turner, 2011:11). Despite having emerged as a popular topic in forums related to transportation, urban planning and public health, yet there has been a generalized lack of consensus on the meaning of walkability. Lo (2009) argues that a wide range of researchers has been involved in evaluating the relations between the urban environment and the pedestrian behaviour, and all have a different definition of how to measure walkability.

Leslie et al., (2007:91) conceptualized ‘walkability’ as “the extent to which characteristics of the built environment and land use may or may not be conducive to residents in the area while walking for ei-ther leisure, exercise or recreation, to access services, or to travel to work”, or in simpler terms,

“…the extent to which the built environment is walking friendly” (Abley, 2005) as cited in (Abley and Turner 2011). The latter definition was found to suit the scope of this study, as it seeks to answer and give clarification of what constitutes a ‘walking friendly’ environment. Understanding what consti-tutes a ‘walking friendly environment’ could help to identify the pedestrians’ requirements and the way are being considered and implemented in in cities of developing countries.

This question regarding what constitutes a ‘walking friendly environment’ has been addressed in the work by Transport for London (COST 358, 2010), where the Pedestrians’ quality needs were inter-preted into five main basic requirements (connectivity, conspicuity, comfort, convenience and conviv-iality) that need to be satisfied in order to ensure the walkability of a specific area. These factors have been referred to as the 5Cs, meaning that walking networks and facilities should be connected, con-vivial, conspicuous, comfortable and convenient. The 5Cs reflects the pedestrians’ desire to make their journeys in the shortest and most convenient way possible, as a safe, pleasant and comfortable journey experience (ibid). In addition, the (COST 358 2010) have developed a qualitative approach to assess the pedestrian environment, neglecting the possibility to perform a quantitative analysis.

The pedestrian qualitative assessment framework (5Cs) is derived from the Pizza Model, a visual checklist that summarizes the four components of the pedestrian system, namely: person, vehicle, or-ganisation and environment (Methorst, 2003). The Pizza-model was developed as a means for policy development to form a source of inspiration for devising comprehensive transport and road safety in-terventions. This means that the pedestrian environment cannot successfully be improved if policy makers do not include pedestrians in transport planning and urban development. Additionally, walka-bility has to be related to the need for quality, a rather neglected issue in the pedestrian system. Figure 4.1 presents the Pizza model through which the qualitative framework for assessing the pedestrian needs was developed:

67 Source: Methorst (2003).

Figure 4. 1: Pizza model summarizing the four components of the pedestrian system As figure 4.1 shows, the level of performance of the transport system and road safety depends on the sum of the qualities of the four components, namely: person, vehicle, environment and organisation / social context. However, the qualitative temperate for assessing the pedestrian system (5Cs) was con-fined to one portion of the Pizza model, namely the “physical environment” dimension, and hence the 5Cs seeks to improve the knowledge on pedestrians’ quality needs with regard to the spatial environ-ment. Having introduced the Pizza model, figure 4.2 presents the qualitative temperate to assessing the pedestrian system and its level of quality is based on three aspects: context, pedestrians’ quality needs (PQNs) and interventions:

Source: COST 358, 2010:25

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The framework presented in Figure 4.2 only takes into account the connection between pedestrians’

needs and the physical environment, whilst neglecting the other three components of the pedestrian system (i.e. person, vehicle and organisation).

The 5Cs are here defined in succession (COST 358, 2010):

1. Connected: The extent to which the pedestrian network links to key trip origins and destina-tions, as well as the extent of linkages between different routes on the network. Indicators:

Undisturbed route between origin and destinations, absence of obstacles and obstructions and access to public transport nodes (bus stops, railway stations) (ibid).

2. Convivial: The extent to which walking is a pleasant activity, in terms of interaction with people, the built and natural environment, and other road users. Indicators: Absence of con-flicts with other means of transportations (car, bicycle, moped, segway) and absence of threats and assaults, absence of rubbish, potholes, roots, damaged surfaces and adequate street furniture, benches, “places to stop” (ibid).

3. Conspicuous: The extent to which walking routes and public spaces feel safe and inviting for pedestrians, in terms of clear and legible signing and information. Indicators: lighting and visibility, delineation and legibility and traffic signs (information and orientation).

4. Comfortable: The extent to which walking is accommodated to the competencies and abilities of all types of pedestrians. Indicators: Well-maintained footpaths of adequate widths, smooth surface and with few obstacles (steps, mud, etc), attractive landscape design and architecture, and provision of rest place opportunities, and absence of noise and fumes from motor traffic.

5. Convenient: The extent to which walking is possible and able to compete with other modes of transport in terms of efficiency (time, money and space). Indicators: Road crossing opportu-nities (location, type, waiting time), walkable distances between key destination and direct-ness, absence of barriers, changing level (steps and slopes) and discomfort.

For the purpose of this study, the above five 5Cs were adapted to meet the walkability concept and definition. However, as Paulo (2012), two other dimensions were added to suit the scope of the study.

These are namely, coexistence and commitment.

6. Commitment: The extent to which there exists engagement, liability and responsibility to-wards the pedestrian environment (Paul, 2012). This dimension captures the engagement of the policy makers, spatial and transport planners in promoting pedestrian friendly environ-ments. As argued by Paulo (2012) the dimension of ‘commitment’ does not relate solely to the built environment, as it may include programs or initiatives to encourage walking or the degree of enforcement of laws and regulations. The governance plays an essential role in the factors that affect travel behaviour. Therefore, the dimension of commitment is taken into consideration due to the fact that the built environment in most cases is a result of policy mak-er’s decisions and planning standards (ibid). It is clear that much of what results from the us-age of the built environment relate to the community behaviour and attitude, and these finally can be influenced by the initiatives and regulations. To in create a walkable city and maintain a pedestrian friendly environment, these reasons are valid.

7. Coexistence: It implies the extent to which pedestrians and other transport modes can exist at the same time and place with order and peace (Paulo, 2012). The role of motorized means of transport in influencing the attitude towards walking is felt at different levels. Firstly, motor-ized vehicles need space to circulate, a situation that results into the encroachments of the pe-destrian walking space. Secondly, as a number of accidents and conflicts occur daily in the urban public space and hence understanding the motorists’ behaviour is of great significance

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as pedestrian safety is concerned. From the literature, motorized vehicles have been identified as a major factor contributing towards pedestrian fatalities, injuries, road traffic deaths and less people walking in the cities. Thirdly, cars consume energy and produce noise and gas emissions that make the urban environment less attractive to enjoy on foot (ibid). To improve walkability in rapidly growing cities in developing countries where pedestrians share same space with other street users such as cars, motorcycles, Tri-cycles, bicycles, three wheelers and public transport, considering the coexistence of pedestrians and other modes of transport modes is of great significant as a walkability dimension on its own is concerned.

Having added the two factors (commitment and coextended), the walkability dimensions used in this study comprise 7Cs layout, instead of 5Cs. These are namely; connectivity, convenience, comfort, conviviality, conspicuous, commitment and coexistence. Similar remarks were also made by Paulo (2012).