Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

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Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

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What characterizes the discussion on cities these days is not a wrongheadedness or a lack of awareness about what needs to be done, but rather a complete disconnect between that awareness and the actions of those responsible for the physical form of our communities.

From Walkable City, by Jeff Speck, Pg 3

Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

Prepared for the People of the State of Florida By

Adam Antony Biblo, AICP 2017

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following for your comments, critiques, guidance, suggestions, illustrations, and most of all, for your time and effort: Michael Lewyn, LLM, JD, Touro Law Center; Greg Burke, AICP, Capital Regional Transportation Planning Agency; DeWayne Carver, AICP, Florida Department of Transportation; Harrison Marshall, North Carolina Department of Transportation; Zach Galloway, City of Eugene, Washington; Ron Grunwald, JLL; Dom Nozzi; and, Mark Yelland, AICP, Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

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This document is intended to provide guidance to persons interested in creating communities that support pedestrian mobility, including urban planning practitioners, government officials, the public, and those involved in land development and community development. The document incorporates concepts from a variety of fields, including transportation planning, urban design, and land use planning, and is intended to be a practical guide that can be used by any interested person. Best practices are explained and illustrated with examples.

The document begins with a brief overview of the benefits of communities that promote pedestrian mobility, followed by a focus on the concepts that can be used to plan new communities and retrofit existing communities to achieve a high degree of pedestrian mobility. The document concludes with a number of appendices containing a variety of resources, including an extensive glossary of terms, references, and examples of planning policy that can be used to support a community’s effort to design for pedestrian mobility. Many of the examples cited are from Florida, arising from the author’s experience as an urban planner in that state, although the basic concepts provided herein are transferrable and may be used in other locations.

Figure 1. Broadway Street, Asheville, NC, In front of Mellow Mushroom Restaurant street frontage. The restaurant provides an area for outdoor seating that is often filled with customers. Restaurants that provide outdoor seating along corridors designed to accommodate pedestrian travel are often attractive destinations for pedestrians. Courtesy: Google Earth

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2. What is Pedestrian Mobility?

 In a nutshell, pedestrian mobility means being able to get from here to there, safely and conveniently, on foot, or for any mobility-impaired person, by wheelchair.

 Some communities accommodate pedestrians well; many do not. In communities where pedestrian mobility is accommodated well, pedestrians can and do walk to multiple destinations. They walk whether or not walking is their only travel option and they have places to walk to. When communities do not accommodate pedestrian mobility well, travel by foot occurs less; travel that could otherwise have occurred by foot is replaced in part by travel by motor vehicle or in other instances, doesn’t occur at all.

3. Why is Pedestrian Mobility Important?

Why Design Communities for Pedestrian Mobility?

Our Communities Are Not Accommodating Travel on Foot -- The Federal Highway Administration’s most recent National Household Travel Survey (2009) found that 50% of all trips taken in the US were under 3 miles with 28% under 1 mile or less, yet 72% of the trips of 1 mile or less were by car. The potential to increase the number and percentage of trips made by walking is significant. To do so will require the redesign and retrofitting of our communities to provide better-connected walking routes, close-by destinations, and to make walking safe, convenient, and enjoyable.

 Designing your community to accommodate pedestrian mobility provides an affordable means for travel throughout the community for persons who either do not drive, should not drive, can not afford to drive, or prefer some other option than driving. This population includes both those too young and too old to drive, those who don’t have a vehicle or for whom driving is cost-prohibitive, persons with some disabilities, those that rely on transit as the primary means of mobility, and those legally barred from driving. Another way of saying this is designing a community for pedestrian mobility makes the community more accessible, so that young people, seniors, and the carless need not live in isolation.

 In communities that accommodate pedestrian mobility well, persons can travel throughout the community without a car, thereby reducing the number of car trips and the length of car trips, in turn, providing environmental, economic, and health benefits.

 The environmental benefits derive mostly from the reduction in emissions associated with less miles driven. The term vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is often used to refer to the aggregate number miles driven by vehicles in any particular location or timeframe. Reducing VMT has a corresponding effect in reducing vehicular emissions, and therefore, reducing air pollution.

 The personal economic benefits are associated with reduced purchases of gasoline, reduced frequency of car maintenance, reduced car insurance costs for less miles driven, and if the need to drive is reduced so much that a car need not be purchased, associated significant savings.

According to Bankrate.com, typical car ownership costs are in estimated range of $3,400 annually, not including the car’s purchase cost; typical expenditures on gasoline alone range from $1000-$2000 annually.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/car-ownership-costs-by-state.aspx. Purchase of a $22,000 car with a

$5,000 down payment and 3.5% financing for 60 months (for $17,000) equates to an additional cost of $4700 annually, for that 5-year period, bringing the total cost of car ownership to over $8,000 or about $675 a month.

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 As to health benefits, the literature notes that in places with higher levels of walking and cycling, there are lower percentages of adults with obesity and diabetes [see, for example, Walking and Cycling to Health: A Comparative Analysis of City, State, and International Data, by Pucher, et al, at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2937005/]. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 2,600 Americans die every day from some form of cardiovascular disease. Walking is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to help prevent cardiovascular disease. The American Heart Association notes that walking can help reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, improve blood pressure and blood sugar levels, maintain body weight, and reduce the risk of obesity, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, and colon cancer. The Florida Department of Health reports that 1 of 3 children are overweight or obese and 65% of adults are at an unhealthy weight. The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center’s website provides a wealth of information on this topic at http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_health.cfm. Another excellent examination of community design, walkability, and health is the article Many Pathways from Land Use to Health, by Frank, et al, at http://www.actrees.org/files/Research/JAPAFrank06.pdf.

From The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs

 A well used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe. [Pg 34]

 A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities: [Pg 35]

 First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces can not ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.

 Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.

 And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.

 Designing your community to accommodate pedestrian mobility makes the community safer – it promotes more human activity in the public domain – adding “eyes on the street” improving

surveillance and awareness.

 Designing your community to accommodate pedestrian mobility makes it much easier for seniors to age in place, without having to relocate to an institution or retirement housing. Seniors can continue to enjoy a high quality of life, being able to continue to socialize with their neighbors, and take both purpose-based & recreation-based walks. A community designed to accommodate walking by people of all ages, allows seniors to be able to continue to conduct their business and chores without dependence on driving or having to be driven, to interact and socialize through daily participation in street life, and of course, to contribute to their health and wellbeing through the exercise provided.

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Designing communities to be dependent upon automobiles means ignoring a significant portion of the population:

 According to the 2010 Census, 21% of the population of the State of Florida is age 17 or younger and 17% is over 65 years of age. Most persons aged 17 or younger do not drive, and many of persons aged 65 years or older would prefer not to drive or drive less.

 40.6% of the State’s population has been classified as potentially eligible for assistance under the State’s Transportation Disadvantaged program*. [Pg. 18, Florida Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged 2012 Annual Performance Report]

*Florida’s transportation disadvantaged are defined in Section 427.011(1), F.S., as those persons who because of physical or mental disability, income status, or age, are unable to transport themselves or to purchase

transportation and are, therefore, dependent upon others to obtain access to health care, employment, education, shopping, social activities, or other life-sustaining activities, or children who are handicapped or high-risk as defined in s. 411.202, F.S.

 We are less healthy because we don’t walk: the latest data available show that almost two-thirds (65 percent) of adults in the State of Florida are overweight or obese. [2013, Florida Department of Health website]

 Designing your community to accommodate pedestrian mobility improves the real estate value and economic development potential of the areas served. Ensuring that a particular portion of the community is accessible to pedestrians and accommodates travel by walking means making possible to attract potential customers that will travel on foot, whether from their parked car, a transit stop, their place of business, or their residence. Thus, business patronage and employee access is not limited to just those that arrive by car.

It’s not simply a coincidence that districts full of people walking about are commonly referred to as

“shopping districts.” While development of our communities from the 1950s to the new millennium strongly favored development of autocentric shopping malls and commercial strip centers, recent trends have begun to de-emphasize these forms. Our communities are once again turning to traditional forms of commercial development, with the main street and the aforementioned shopping district accommodating patrons arriving both by foot and by car, and, as well, experimenting with newer forms of development, such as the “lifestyle center,” that attempt to recreate the form and experience of an urban shopping mall, without the roof, and which sometimes incorporate limited aspects of a walkable street network.

Well-designed portions of the community accommodate multiple modes of travel and thus attract a greater number of users; conversely, developments or segments of the community that only accommodate those who travel by car are places that must depend upon smaller portions of the population for their viability.

 Designing your community to accommodate pedestrian mobility facilitates access to and travel by transit. With few exceptions, travel by transit first requires access to transit stops and facilities. With good planning, stops and facilities can be incorporated as components of large development projects.

But whether located within a development, or not, some walking or biking is often necessary to get from the residence, business, or recreational destination to the transit stop or facility. Failure to provide good pedestrian linkages

from such destinations to transit stops and facilities will almost certainly reduce the number of persons utilizing the transit service.

A walkability plan must set a stage for all other modes of transportation to work, including transit. If people cannot walk then transit remains ineffective. – Dan Burden

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Good pedestrian linkages have no gaps in sidewalk connectivity, are as direct as possible, minimize the number of major streets and number of lanes that must be crossed, offer marked crossings, pedestrian signals, good lighting, provide shade, and where possible, include structural responses along the way, such as awnings and arcades, to help pedestrians avoid bad weather.

Failing to Adequately Address Pedestrian Mobility Costs the State of Florida. Florida does not do an adequate job of accommodating pedestrian mobility. Metro areas in the State continually rank as the least-safest in the nation for pedestrians. In part this is due to having a climate that provides for year- round activity; another factor is the large number of tourists that may be unfamiliar with the communities they are visiting. While those factors play a role in contributing to the high incidence of safety issues in Florida, perhaps the primary factor is that many cities in Florida were designed and built to accommodate travel by automobile and not by foot. Lack of attention to pedestrian safety results in unnecessary loss of life, injuries, health care expenses, reduced economic opportunity (including access to jobs and access to market choice), and diminished tourism experiences, potentially leading to diminished tourism revenues.

Most Dangerous Metro Areas 2009¹ Most Dangerous Metro Areas 20122 Most Dangerous Metro Areas 2014³ 1. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL 1. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL 1. Cape Coral- Ft. Myers, FL

2. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL 2. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL 2. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL 3. Jacksonville, FL 3. Jacksonville, FL 3. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL 4. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL 4. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL 4. Jacksonville, FL

5. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 5. Memphis, TN-MS-AR 5. Deltona-Daytona Bch-Ormond Bch, FL 6. Las Vegas-Paradise, NV 6. Birmingham-Hoover, AL 6. Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL

7. Memphis, TN-MS-AR 7. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 7. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL 8. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 8. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA 8. Jackson, MS

9. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 9. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 9. Memphis, TN-MS-AR

10. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 10. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC 10. North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL Sources:1) Dangerous By Design 2011, Transportation For America

@ http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/dangerous-by-design-2011.pdf 2) Dangerous By Design 2014, Smart Growth America

@ http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/dangerous-by-design-2014/dangerous-by-design-2014.pdf 3) Dangerous By Design 2016, Smart Growth America

@ https://smartgrowthamerica.org/resources/dangerous-by-design-2016/

4. What General Factors Influence Pedestrian Mobility?

Several factors combine to influence how well a community facilitates pedestrian mobility: the land use pattern, transportation system design, transportation system operations, transportation system maintenance, climate, culture, and the perception of safety. While it is not necessary to address every one of these factors to enhance pedestrian mobility within the community, it is possible to do so through good planning and coordination. These factors are described briefly below:

The land use pattern. The term land use pattern refers to the spatial arrangement and relationship of the different land uses within the community. This includes the diversity and density of land uses, two of the most important characteristics in a walkable community. Land use pattern on a finer level also

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includes the basic form of development, including how structures are located in relation to one another, to the street and to open spaces, and to the details of the site layout.

A land use pattern that provides a diversity of land uses located within walking distance is critical to creating a walkable community. In the simplest terms, it is more likely that people will walk between many different potential destinations when they are located close to one another, or to where the people live, than if these destinations were scattered and dispersed far from one another and from where people live.

Think of it as Moving Point B Closer.

Related to the land use pattern is the concept of an interesting walk. Jeff Speck, urban planner and designer, and author of several books on community design, argues that this is actually the most important factor in determining whether people will walk by choice within a community. A land use pattern that contributes to an interesting walk is one that engages the pedestrian by providing a variety of interactive opportunities alongside, such as a corridor lined with shops and restaurants. In contrast, an area developed exclusively or largely with a single use, particularly one that does not depend on customers and visitors, such as offices or wholesaling, would be unlikely to attract many pedestrians.

The transportation system design. The term transportation system design refers to the design of the facilities used for transportation, including streets, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, transit stops, trails and greenways, and ancillary infrastructure, such as, signage and stormwater facilities, on-street parking, lights, traffic signals (but not traffic signal operation). Many transportation system design factors require attention to create a walkable community, among the most important are facility dimensions, facility placement/location, and materials used in the composition of the facility.

Route location and continuity is an especially important aspect of transportation system design.

The presence of highly interconnected and continuous sidewalk systems in locations that can generate or attract significant pedestrian traffic volumes is critical to facilitating pedestrian mobility, particularly in urban settings. Other especially important design considerations affecting pedestrian mobility are street (cross-)section design, and sidewalk (cross-)section design. Certainly, Jeff Speck’s concept of an interesting walk also relates to the quality of transportation system design.

Transportation system operations. The term transportation system operations refers to the use of signage and traffic signals to affect the flow of both vehicular and non-vehicular traffic. Examples include the operation of traffic signals, which, depending on how they are set, can encourage vehicular travel at certain speeds, provide for vehicular turning movements, provide for pedestrian crossing; and, the operation of pedestrian signals, which indicate when it’s safe to cross a street, alert pedestrians of hazards, and alert drivers to stop for pedestrians.

Pedestrian safety and mobility are affected by how traffic and pedestrian signals are operated.

The pedestrian typically experiences the effects of transportation system operations in two ways: as they move along parallel to traffic and as they cross perpendicular to traffic.

While this may seem an obvious statement, it appears to be too frequently ignored: as one walks within the community they may find that within a particular corridor, traffic and pedestrian signals accommodate one type of movement less sufficiently than the other. Giving short shrift to either type of movement can create an environment less to conducive to pedestrian travel. This is because persons walking move at different speeds than vehicular traffic and perceive different threats. Examples of this phenomenon:

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1) Along a corridor where signals are timed to promote through vehicular traffic with less time spent stopped at red lights, pedestrians walking along the corridor parallel to traffic can cross the next street at the corner and continue along without stopping, or at least not waiting long (except when the turning vehicle fails to yield, which is another, but not unrelated problem), but because of the bias to providing longer green time for through movement along the street, pedestrians must wait longer to cross the corridor (perpendicular to traffic) and often are given less time to cross. Additionally the pedestrians walking along the corridor parallel to traffic are walking alongside faster traffic, which has its own set of safety and discomfort factors, and when crossing perpendicular streets, are often confronted with the turning traffic, already traveling at brisk speed, as opposed to more slowly advancing from a full stop at a red light.

2) Where signals are timed to promote vehicular traffic on streets crossing perpendicular to the corridor, pedestrians have an easier time crossing from one side of the of the corridor to the other but must wait longer when walking along the corridor parallel to traffic and crossing at the next street corner. Thus, when pedestrian destinations are equally distributed spatially, the goal should be should be to strike a balance between accommodating these two pedestrian movements.

As noted in Ensure Safety on page 13, environments where vehicular traffic speeds are less than 35 mph are necessary to create an environment where pedestrians feel safe and their mobility encouraged.

The operation of the transportation system as experienced by the pedestrian moving alongside traffic relates to this concept: traffic signal progression and the amount of “green time” for vehicular traffic has a significant effect on the operating speed of a street and whether the environment will be conducive to pedestrian mobility. Arguably the most important role of transportation signal operations in terms of pedestrian mobility is their effect on the pedestrian’s ability to cross a street.

Two attributes of signal operation relating to safe pedestrian crossing are adequate crossing time (i.e., having the walk signal for pedestrians displayed for a sufficient length of time it takes to cross the street -- based on a walking speed ranging from 2.5 feet per second for an elderly adult to 4 feet per second for younger persons) and reasonable intervals that the pedestrian must wait between walk signals.

Having to wait too long between intervals encourages pedestrians to cross against the signal and at unsafe locations.

Transportation system maintenance. The term transportation system maintenance refers to how well facilities are maintained and repaired. Broken and cracked sidewalks, damaged curbs, etc., all reduce the ability of the pedestrian to travel safely. Improperly maintained drainage facilities can result in wet conditions within the street or sidewalk, also discouraging and impeding pedestrian mobility.

Additional challenges are street and sidewalks closed for repair or construction activities, particularly in those instances where the local government has not identified and marked an alternative route that is safe and convenient.

Climate. Climate can have a profound effect on whether a community is walkable. Exposure to adverse conditions such as extreme heat, cold, rain, and lightning create hazardous and uncomfortable conditions for pedestrians. To some extent, through careful urban design and facility design, these climatic impacts, in particular, extreme heat and rain, can be mitigated. Some architects and urban designers, such as Bruno Stagno, focus on design that adapts to the subtropical climate characteristic of Florida.

Communities can be designed to incorporate a variety of elements that help mitigate heat and rain, as well as the adverse effects of turbulence and buffeting from vehicular traffic. These elements include the use of street trees, typically placed between the pavement and the pedestrian clearway, in the furnishing

& planting zone (see Appendices Part 2., Sidewalk Section Nomenclature, pages 95-97), and structural coverings extending over the sidewalk (such as colonnades and canopies).

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Culture. Culture influences human behavior. One may be more or less likely to walk, especially to walk by choice, depending upon their upbringing and cultural background.

The perception of safety. Unless absolutely necessary and no other options exist, most persons will not knowingly expose themselves to danger/hazard, and this concept applies as well to walking. Whether the concern is danger from vehicular traffic conditions, the threat of crime, or some type of environmental hazard, persons will choose to avoid that area or route, unless no other option exists. Thus, to promote pedestrian mobility, it is important that a community pedestrian mobility system be perceived as safe.

Besides maintaining a physically intact sidewalk system in good repair, and mitigating conflicts with vehicles through careful transportation system design and operation, this objective is best achieved through putting “eyes on the street” or natural surveillance, through the use of quality urban design practices that create a welcoming human-scale environment, a high degree of transparency along building frontages (e.g., window space) at the street level, and quality lighting. For the most part, all of the urban design concepts discussed herein are intended to promote a high degree of pedestrian activity and, as a result, put more eyes on the street, further increasing safety.

5. What Design Factors Influence Pedestrian Mobility?

The “Seven Ds”— density, diversity of land uses, design, distance to transit, destination access, demand management (mostly in terms of auto and parking use), and demographics

Recent studies in Journal of Urban Design reviewed research on the topic of how the built environment affects one’s choice to walk. Researchers identified a series of variables—summarized here as the “Seven Ds”—that play a role in mode choice and walking behavior: density, diversity of land uses, design, distance to transit, destination access, demand management (mostly in terms of auto and parking use), and demographics [Cervero and Kockelman 1997; Lee and Moudon 2006; Ewing and Cervero 2010].

The role these variables have in determining walking behavior is a topic of debate. Nico Larco, et al, examined this issue in the Journal of Urban Design, 2013 Vol. 18, No. 2, and reported that studies have shown that diversity of land uses, the concentration and accessibility of commercial destinations, and reduced distances between origins and destinations are consistently related to increased walking trips.

Larco and his associates found that residential density seemed to have a fairly inconsistent relationship to walking behavior, with higher densities sometimes resulting in increased walking.

Larco and his associates examined existing research and found that measures of connectivity, or the general directness of routes between destinations and origins in an area, have also had mixed results in terms of their relationships to increased walking behavior, noting that Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero’s meta-analysis of the research on this topic found that one of the key measures of connectivity— the ratio of intersections to street segments (or street density) ratio—to be the most meaningful variable in predicting walking trips, while other meta-analysis showed an inconclusive effect for connectivity measures.

Larco and his associates point out that some of the inconsistency in the findings related to the importance of density and connectivity may be explained by the fact that many studies do not distinguish between utilitarian (purpose-based) and recreational walking trips. Studies that have separated these two types of walking trips have found a significant relationship between utilitarian walking trips, density, and connectivity, while studies looking specifically at recreational walking have shown less of a relationship to these factors, but a greater importance to the aesthetic quality of the environment, safety, and convenience to recreational facilities.

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Arlie Adkins, et al, examined factors that lead one to walk in the article Unpacking Walkability: “Testing the Influence of Urban Design Features on Perceptions of Walking Environment Attractiveness” in the Journal of Urban Design, Volume 17, No. 4. Adkins, et al, note that Mariela Alfonzo’s research into the issue of walking needs supports the finding that variables such as destination proximity, density, and connectivity influence the decision to walk more than do factors of safety, comfort, and pleasurability.

Agrawal, et al, cited Adkins’s research, finding that among a sample of commuters walking to rail transit stations, the directness of the route was the primary factor affecting choice of route taken by the pedestrian, followed by safety and aesthetic characteristics of the route. [Asha Weinstein Agrawal , Marc Schlossberg & Katja Irvin (2008), How Far, by Which Route and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference, Journal of Urban Design, 13:1, 81-98]

In a study that produced contrasting findings, Reid Ewing, et al, examined the correlation between a variety of streetscape features and pedestrian traffic volumes in New York City. Their study found that the greater the proportion of window space, active street frontage (the study defines an active use building as one which attracts/generates frequent pedestrian traffic, such as a restaurant, an apartment building, a school) or amount of street furniture, the greater the volume of pedestrian traffic along the adjacent sidewalk. The study did not find that diversity, density, and destination accessibility bore a significant relationship to pedestrian volume. The study’s authors did note that New York is unique and

that their findings may be less valid and reliable elsewhere. [Reid Ewing, Amir Hajrasouliha, Kathryn M. Neckerman, Marnie Purciel-Hill, & William Greene (2015), Streetscape Features Related to

Pedestrian Activity, Journal of Planning Education and Research, July 6, 2015]

Pedestrian Behavioral Considerations – Variables Influencing Choice to Walk and Route:

 Shorter walk preferred to the longer walk for utilitarian purposes. The converse may be true for recreational walks, but while one can choose to take longer recreational walks by repeating a shorter circuit or route, the converse is not possible

 A more comfortable walk is preferred to a less comfortable walk

 A safer walk is preferred to a more dangerous/hazardous walk

 An interesting walk is preferred to a duller walk

 Perception is a stronger influence than reality with the above considerations

 The considerations (variables) above interplay, and for different users at different times, may assume different values/importance, resulting in different choices as to whether to walk & what route to take

 When understood and properly addressed, these considerations translate into opportunities to stretch walking distance another block or so. To do so requires appropriate attention to street design, land use intensity & diversity, urban design detail, and the strategic location of pedestrian destinations – for example, the pedestrian may walk an extra block to a desired location if the variables noted above are adequately addressed, thus opening up the entire block frontage to potential pedestrian activity.

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6.Guidelines: Community Characteristics to Facilitate Pedestrian Mobility A Land Use Pattern of Diversity & Density

 Diversity: Provide a wide variety of land uses (origins & destinations) within close proximity to one another.

 Density: Locate uses as close as possible to one another, increasing the number of potential destinations within close proximity and walking distance, increasing potential for economic and cultural synergy. This avoids or limits destination gaps along a potential route which would otherwise discourage pedestrian activity. Another of example of Moving Point B Closer.

 In combination, these two considerations lead to the following guiding principle for creating pedestrian mobility: Pack as many different shops and restaurants (destinations), and residences (origins) into close proximity of one another as possible.

Provide Connectivity

 Connect uses (origins & destinations) with a complete pedestrian network. A densely connected street network, with an intact, connected sidewalk system and other pedestrian facilities should provide access to all developed properties in the urban area and most suburban areas. Shorter blocks mean more intersections and route options for the pedestrian.

 Provide a high degree of connectivity to other streets and the land uses located alongside the street.

 Facilitate mobility. The system should be designed to allow pedestrians to safely travel along the street, across the street, and from the street to the entrance of the destination.

 Facilitate access. Design and locate land uses (origins & destinations) so that it’s easy to enter and exit with direct connection to and from the pedestrian network.

 Provide connectivity to other modes of travel, such as to transit stops and bike facilities.

Ensure Safety

 Design streets where pedestrian use is intended for vehicles to travel at speeds of 35 mph, preferably less. Narrower pavement and lane widths usually promote slower speed vehicular. Roadways with fewer lanes are typically safer for pedestrians than facilities with more lanes; when additional roadway vehicular capacity is required in an area where pedestrian use is intended, consider using multiple parallel streets rather than creating a multilane, high speed, high volume arterial road.

 Design the community and the pedestrian network to facilitate natural surveillance by providing “eyes on the street.”

 Provide adequate and appropriate lighting for pedestrians, which is typically lower in height and intensity, but more closely spaced, than that provided for general street lighting.

 Reduce exposure to vehicles. Limit/reduce the length of pedestrian crossing spans, both at intersections and along driveway access connections to the public street system.

 Design streets and driveways where pedestrian use is intended to have curbs with tight radii (preferably under 20 feet). Tight radii on curbs requires drivers to slow down to make the turn, increasing potential visibility of a pedestrian crossing the street and allowing for shorter stopping distance in the case of conflicts. Tight curb radii design also means that the corner (or driveway) is squarer (or less flared) and therefore, the sidewalk extends further and the pedestrian crossing span shorter, so that the pedestrian is less exposed to being struck by a vehicle. See Figure 2, next page.

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Figure 2. Illustration of Actual Curb Radius vs Effective Curb Radius. Source: Oregon Pedestrian and Bicycle Design Guide.

Design & Build at a Pedestrian-Scale

 Create a pedestrian scale and sense of enclosure. As a general rule of thumb, sense of enclosure occurs when the buildings lining the street (the streetwall) help create a sense that the street is the floor of an outdoor room. As a general rule of thumb, the sense of enclosure, is created a pedestrian scale when the ratio of the height of the street wall to the width of the street is within the range of 1:3 to 3:1. Note that this range of ratios is only a rough rule of thumb and through careful design, a sense of enclosure can be created outside of this range of proportions.

 Pedestrian scale is the scale in which a pedestrian can comfortably experience and understand the surrounding environment. It is essentially human scale, and it is based on a person’s ability to recognize other people and to communicate effectively with them. Whereas very large buildings, such as big box stores, and large roadside signs may understandable to someone traveling by car on a highway, they would not be at a scale easily experienced by a pedestrian. Narrow storefronts (less than 60 feet wide), buildings located close to the street (and sidewalk), and relatively short buildings (five floors and less), with signage intended for someone passing by on foot, are more characteristic of pedestrian scale.

For taller buildings, pedestrian scale may be achieved through proper design: the buildings should be located up to or close to the street; and at the street level contain active uses, have a high degree of transparency (window glazing), and provide closely spaced entrances. Additionally, with taller buildings, it is possible to step-back (or set-back) the upper floors to lessen the canyon effect created by steep- walled structures along the street frontage. Other design responses, such as the use of horizontal banding above the first or second floor (a building base cap), can help soften the visual effect of taller structures.

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 Provide the most direct pedestrian routes possible.

 Locate uses as close as possible to the sidewalk (and therefore, as close as possible to the street – except when traffic flows at speeds greater than 35 mph).

 Details matter. Examples: the location of parking, the location of the building frontage; the location of the sidewalk in relation to travel lane; the scale and spacing of pedestrian lighting; the design of the furnishing & planting zone portions of the sidewalk; landscaping; the height of buildings and the amount of window glazing compared to blank wall space along the street frontage.

The Multiple Functions of the Street. A well-designed street serves several functions. It is a transportation facility that must serve cars and trucks, transit vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians, and accommodate a wide range of service vehicles, including fire department and emergency responders, waste management trucks, and other larger such as single- and double-unit trucks.

It is a land use, serving as open space that defines the public realm and gives context to surrounding development. It is a place of public social interaction and can be used as the setting of cultural, recreational, and entertainment events, as well as street markets and fairs. It is the corridor in which most of the various infrastructure needed to support the community is located.

A wide range of infrastructure, including stormwater management (drainage) conveyance and collection systems, sewer system mains and laterals, potable water mains, laterals, and fire hydrants, and utilities - - such as cable, phone, gas, and electric -- are often located within or under the street. Streets often also include landscaping maintained by the local government.

In terms of the wide variety of functions that a street must balance, some present more significant challenges to pedestrian mobility than others. In particular, two functions present significant challenges:

1) the design of some streets as high speed arterial roadways, to accommodate high volumes of auto traffic for relatively long distance high speed travel; and, 2) the design of some streets to accommodate large truck travel.

Truck Traffic: The implication of high-speed high-volume arterial streets to pedestrian mobility are significant and are discussed at length in this guide. Designing streets to accommodate larger vehicles, especially larger trucks, often necessitates larger-scale street geometries, which sometimes includes a

Andrés Duany’s hierarchy of Pedestrian Frontage Preferences 1. Storefronts

2. Porches

3. Fenestrated walls 4. Deep landscaped lawns 5. Garage doors

6. Blank walls

7. Open Parking Lots

8. Unbuffered parking structures 9. Under-building parking

10. Open Service areas

Source: Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., The Lexicon of the New Urbanism (Version 3.1), March 1, 2002, pg. H, 2.1]

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corresponding increase in the size of lanes and most often requires accommodating broad turning radii, as longer trucks can not turn in as tight an arc as smaller vehicles. In light of these considerations, streets that accommodate trucks typically have wider lanes, intersections with larger curb radii, medians that have rolled or mountable curbs, and driveway entrances that are both wide and have large, flared curb radii, all design characteristics which promote higher vehicular speeds, creating greater pedestrian crossing distances, and generally reduce pedestrian safety.

Figure 3. To the left, an example from Google Earth, Chapel Hill, NC, where the provision of a “pork-chop” island in the street creates a channelized right turn lane for vehicles creating a pedestrian refuge in the crossing span, shortening exposure to vehicles. One problem with this design is that the continuous right turn lane can be hazardous to pedestrians; this condition can be addressed by adding signage directing traffic to yield to pedestrians [based in part from Tamara Redmon http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/11marapr/03.cfm]

As the phenomenon of large trucks driving through our communities does not seem to ending anytime

soon, it is advisable to consider this issue further. In response, two tactics are recommended:

1) community staff should offer to assist the Department of Transportation district office to develop a truck route plan that recognizes pedestrian mobility as a primary community objective, minimizing the potential that streets where pedestrian use is desired are not modified to accommodate trucks at the expense of the other users, including pedestrians and bicyclists; and, 2) more thoughtful approaches should be used to create street intersections that better balance the needs of pedestrians and trucks, based on the realities of the geometries involved. Examples of such approaches include providing a refuge island with a channelized turn area or slip lane provided for vehicles. This approach accommodates the turning radius of trucks much better than the typical rounded-off square corner provided at most intersections and provides greater visibility of and for pedestrians, while also providing them with a refuge area that minimizes their exposure to vehicles, including trucks, when crossing the street.

The document Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach, produced by the Institute of Transportation Engineers with assistance from the Congress for the New Urbanism and others http://www.ite.org/css/RP-036A-E.pdf, recommends that where potential for conflicts with pedestrians is high and large vehicle turning movements necessitate curb radii exceeding 50 feet, installation of a

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channelized right-turn lane with a pedestrian refuge island should be considered and recommends the use of a three centered compound curve in the design of the island.

Figure 4. This is a plan view of a corner island installed at a corner with a compound curve radius. This design allows use of larger turning radii where required, and pedestrians benefit from the positive aspects of a tight corner that forces drivers to decrease speeds. Source: FHWA, Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access, Part II of II: Best Practices Guide, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalk2/pdf/09chapter8.pdf

Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access, Part II of II: Best Practices Guide, produced by the Federal Highway Administration suggests two additional responses to this issue illustrated below:

Figure 5. Adding bike and parking lanes to increase the effective turning radius for oversize vehicles while retaining the benefits of smaller turning radii for pedestrians

Figure 6. Allowing trucks to turn into the second lane of traffic increases the potential turning radius for oversized vehicles

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Figure 7. The Pinellas County Truck Route Plan -- The Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO)

The Street Accommodates Utilities, Infrastructure, and Services: Another often overlooked issue that requires collaboration is the placement of utilities and underground infrastructure. Infrastructure and underground utilities are often located under the street, but are also often located adjacent to the street under private property, particularly in suburban settings, requiring significant area to be left unbuilt upon and buildings to be located further from street than desirable to promote pedestrian activity.

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Additionally, utility and service connections to buildings can include a variety of pipes, valves, and other appurtenances awkwardly located, from a pedestrian perspective. Coordination with representatives from utility and service providers early on in the planning, development review, and street design processes provides the opportunity to explore options for utility location, including placing utilities within rear-yard easements and within alleys.

As the street fulfills so many different functions it is imperative to engage and include representatives of the wide variety of street users as policy and standards affecting street design are developed. Some of these street users include: fire/emergency responders, solid waste and utilities services, telecommunication services, and public safety agencies, particularly, the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and the Department of Transportation district office.

“The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.” –William H. Whyte

Figure 8. Streets as Places, The Project for Public Spaces, see www.pps.org

The Street in Context: A hospitable environment that attracts pedestrian activity?

 Is the street inhospitable? Does it inhibit pedestrian activity, making it less inviting and therefore less used, resulting in fewer eyes on the street and creating the perception that the street is unsafe, and in a vicious cycle resulting in avoidance of the street by pedestrians?

 Is the design and environment of the street hospitable to pedestrians? If so, it can attract an ensemble of uses (shops, businesses, restaurants, residences) that cater to pedestrians and in doing so, result in an even more desirable location for pedestrians. Conversely, in an inhospitable environment, auto-dependent uses will eventually dominate the corridor, creating an unwelcome environment for pedestrians.

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7. Promoting Pedestrian Safety Through Design

Arguably, one of the most important factors effecting pedestrian mobility is the perception of a safe environment.

To create a safe environment, a number of factors must be adequately addressed:

 the speed of vehicular traffic in the travel lane alongside the pedestrian’s route (for example, alongside the sidewalk);

 the degree of separation between the sidewalk/pedestrian facility and the adjacent travel lane;

 the ease and ability to cross the street and intersecting streets at the end of the block; and,

 the development pattern surrounding the street -- promoting a high degree of visibility of streetlife from adjacent buildings and that contributes a high volume of pedestrian usage.

Exposure of pedestrians to high speed traffic is perceived as unsafe by pedestrians and is a strong deterrence to pedestrian use. Most streets have been designed to vehicular travel at a specific speed, referred to as the street’s design speed.

Figure 9. Wide lanes and fast traffic? Very dangerous. The graph above illustrates the effect of vehicle speed impact on survivability in vehicle-pedestrian crashes. Crashes where pedestrians were impacted by vehicles traveling at 20 mph were fatal to 5% of pedestrians, whereas, 85% of pedestrians struck by a vehicle traveling at 40 mph died. (Image credit:

Hall Planning & Engineering, Inc.)

Standard practice for the most recent 60+ years has been to overdesign streets, so that they can accommodate higher speed vehicular travel than necessary for their assigned function. This practice often results in streets that allow for vehicular travel that is perceived as too fast for pedestrian usage. The picture below helps illustrate the differences between design speed, operating speed, the speed that vehicular are actually traveling, and the posted speed limit, and the lack of correlation between these

“speeds.” The term inferred speed, as referred to in Figure 10, is the speed that the street design conveys to the driver is the appropriate speed to be traveling.

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Figure 10. Posted speed limit is not the same as design speed!

Keeping vehicular speed slow in the travel lanes adjacent to the sidewalk or pedestrian facility is one of the most effective strategies to create a safe environment for pedestrians. Keeping streets and travel lanes narrow has the effect of moderating vehicular traffic speed and is one the most effective and least expensive tactics that can be used for that purpose. Appropriate street width to promote pedestrian mobility depends upon a number of factors and must also consider the other functions that the street is required to perform. Ideally, the width of the travel lanes in a street should be as narrow as possible without compromising other required street functions, such as emergency service vehicle access;

typically, this corresponds to a minimum width of 10 feet for travel lanes. Conversely, excessively-wide travel lanes and street sections encourage higher speed vehicular traffic, creating an unsafe environment for pedestrians and adversely impacting pedestrian mobility.

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Avoid Over-Design!

Streets must be properly designed to facilitate pedestrian mobility in the community. In his post, Walkable streets: Considering Common Issues., (Blog post featured on Better! Cities & Towns, March 11, 2013 ), Geoff Dyer points out that to create a safer environment for pedestrians slower vehicular movement should be encouraged through careful street design, where the pavement widths of walkable streets are narrower than those of conventional streets. Dyer notes most conventional streets are typically designed for a higher “design speed” than the intended “posted speed.” This practice results in streets with excessive pavement width which encourages vehicles to drive in excess of the posted speed as well as the design speed. In response Dyer recommends that the design speed be the same as the desired posted speed.

Expounding on this concept, Dyer points out that in an urban context, to move traffic along, streets don’t actually need to operate at higher speeds, and thus don’t require wider lanes. Research has shown that streets with traffic flowing at 25mph have the greatest capacity for vehicles per lane. This also improves both pedestrian safety and the perception of pedestrian safety -- the difference between being struck by an automobile traveling 25mph and 45mph is often the difference between a survivable pedestrian injury and a fatality. Designing a street system based on slower speeds also makes it easier to enhance pedestrian mobility through better street geometries allowing for smaller (tighter) turning radii and a more connected block structure.

Figure 11. Typical roadway capacities are greatest with operating speeds near 25 mph. Image credit: Geoff Dyer;

from the Highway Capacity Manual, Transportation Research Board.

Examining the design and land development factors associated with crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists in urban environments. Eric Dumbaugh and his associates examined design and land development factors and their association with automobile crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists. Their research found that the presence of pedestrian-scaled retail uses along roadway corridors was associated with statistically significant reductions in the incidence of multiple- vehicle, fixed-object, and pedestrian crashes. Dumbaugh and his associates reported that this is almost

“The masters of space and time awaken to find themselves slaves of distance and haste”

-- Wolfgang Sachs, For Love of the Automobile (1992)

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certainly attributable to the effects of the pedestrian-scaled commercial and retail uses on vehicle speeds, noting that street-oriented buildings create a sense of visual enclosure to the street, communicating to the driver that greater caution is warranted, resulting in reductions in both vehicle speeds and crash incidence (Dumbaugh, 2006; Ossenbruggen, Pendharkar, & Ivan, 2001; Smith & Appleyard, 1981).

In their research, Dumbaugh and associates cited a recent study that compared roadway segments with identical street design geometries but different roadside characteristics. This study found that the presence of urban roadside features, such as buildings located adjacent to the street and sidewalks, were associated with speed reductions of up to 10mph (Ivan, Garrick, & Hanson, 2009). This report by Dumbaugh and his associates is available at: http://swutc.tamu.edu/publications/technicalreports/161107-1.pdf [E.W. Dumbaugh, W. Li, K. Joh, Examining the Design and Developmental Factors Associated with Crashes Involving Pedestrians, Cyclists, and Motorists in Urban Environments, May 2012, Texas A & M University Transportation Institute Technical Report]

Fundamental Driver - Pedestrian Interaction Considerations:

1) Visibility is required to facilitate safe driver response and pedestrian reaction.

2) Drivers making critical movements – i.e., turning, are focused on potential on-coming traffic ahead of them and traffic signals and less aware of pedestrians that may be crossing perpendicular to their right or left. This is one factor that adds to the difficulty for pedestrians to cross at corners.

3) The longer the arc of that the turning vehicle makes, the greater the distance the automobile travels and builds up speed before the driver sees the pedestrian and reacts; the higher the speed, the greater the breaking distance.

4) The wider the street is at the pedestrian crossing (the longer the crossing span) and therefore, the greater the pedestrian exposure.

5) Darkness and inclement weather also reduce visibility for both pedestrians and drivers.

6) Distracted drivers are less apt to see a pedestrian and therefore less apt to react in a timely manner; distraction can be caused be factors internal to the automobile, such as cell phones, conversations, or external, such visual clutter along the roadside and confusing or complex signage and roadway configurations.

7) Drivers entering or exiting driveways along the street often pose challenges to pedestrian safety and mobility, particularly drivers turning left into a driveway, across from and ahead of traffic, as rush to beat on-coming traffic without looking left to see if pedestrians are crossing the driveway on the sidewalk along the street.

8) Drivers exiting a parking structure can sometimes have difficulty seeing the pedestrians walking along the sidewalk in front of and parallel to the parking structure, depending on the design of the parking structure; the converse is also true – depending on the design of the parking structure, pedestrians may have difficulty seeing exiting vehicles.

The Federal Highway Administration provides a Toolbox of Countermeasures that can be used to respond to most of these issues: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/tools_solve/ped_tctpepc/

A New York City Pedestrian Safety Study examined crashes in which pedestrians were injured or killed and found that about half of pedestrians hit were crossing at crosswalks with signals, and more than half of those were obeying the signal.

Most of those killed while obeying walk signals were hit by turning vehicles

– Sam Schwartz, former NYC Traffic Commissioner in The Savvy New Yorker’s Guide to Jaywalking, Adam Martin, New York (Magazine), January 31, 2014

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc_ped_safety_study_action_plan_technical_supplement.pdf

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How drivers and pedestrians perceive the world

The relationship between motorized vehicular travelers and pedestrians is a significant consideration as typically pedestrians and drivers utilize the same street network, either traveling along or across the same streets.

In one regard, both motorists and pedestrians share a similar concern, typically reflected in their actions, that a crash with a motorized vehicle could have dire consequences and must be avoided. Crashes or collisions cause damage by the result of the force exerted on the colliding objects. Force = mass x acceleration. For a pedestrian in a collision with a vehicle, acceleration does not mean necessarily mean the rate of acceleration of the vehicle, which is often decreasing during breaking, but the rate of

acceleration for the pedestrian. As an example, a pedestrian standing still hit by a car moving 25 mph will suddenly accelerate by approximately 25 mph; if the car weighs, for example, 1 1/2 tons, the force exerted by the impact on the pedestrian is 37.5 ton miles per hour -- to a much lesser extent, the pedestrian’s weight counters the force exerted by the vehicle -- for example, the force exerted upon the vehicle in this crash by a 100 pound child would be 1.25 ton mph, so that the total impact of force in this collision would be 36.25 ton mph). Widely publicized vehicular crash tests reveal that many vehicles are now designed and constructed to withstand simulated 5 mph bumper-to-bumper crashes with little or no resulting damage but fare much less well in simulated higher speed crashes (e.g., @ 25 mph) with other vehicles. In these crash test, the vehicles incorporate a number of features including construction designed to dissipate some of the force that would otherwise be exerted on whatever they collide with, and also provide a variety of safety and restraint systems for the passengers. Of course, pedestrians do not have any of these features, so when they are hit by a vehicle, they experience the full brunt of the force exerted.

In addition to being particularly concerned avoiding colliding with other vehicles, motorists are also concerned with their destination. They don’t want to miss: their turn; their exit; the green light; the correct lane, and their destination. The number of critical movements, terminology for the possible number of turning and lane shifting options that can occur at specified points along the street system, significantly complicates these objectives for drivers. The greater the number of critical movements at an intersection, for example, the more items that the driver must look at and react to. Accordingly, drivers are often much less aware of bicyclists and pedestrians in their environment, and as a result, bicyclists and pedestrians are more likely to be struck by a motorist that did not notice them until too late stop in time.

Basically, both drivers and pedestrians relate to other objects in their trajectory in the following manner:

Look - Perceive - Understand - React. Omission of or interference with any of these steps can be deadly, particularly with higher speed motor vehicles are involved.

This snapshot ignores distracted and impaired drivers and pedestrians who present a significantly greater danger to both themselves and others.

Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

Designing Communities for Pedestrian Mobility

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