Walkability

Consider the above photograph taken by Joseph Kerski. How would you rate it on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being very walkable and 1 being not walkable? What factors did you use in your rating?

You may be wondering where this is: Mitchell, South Dakota.

Consider the images below at right. How walkable would you rate these places?

Would you consider riding horseback to be part of "walkability"? How about the ability to walk your own dog?

How about this typical city street? What factors make it walkable or not so?

How would you rate this site? It may be scenic, but there are no railings.

This is one of the most famous walkways in the world! Do you know where it is? The author was thrilled to be there, but the street is notoriously busy and there are no stop lights or signs.

How would you rate this walk? What obstructions do you notice? How would this be different depending on the weather or the season of the year?

One last city walk for you to consider.

What is Walkability? Walkability can be defined as (1) the degree to which pedestrians feel safe and able to walk in their community, or (2) The degree to which the built or natural environment enables the mobility of pedestrians. 

Whether one wants to walk in a community depends on many factors, such as social norms, perceived safety, personal habits, proximity of desired points to visit, and other factors. This study focuses on the challenges or lack of challenges that pedestrians face. Pedestrians could be on foot, in wheelchairs, bicycles, skateboards, and they could be pushing strollers or assisting someone who is mobility challenged. Walkability thus is also influenced by curb cuts, stairs, or other obstacles.

Why care about walkability?

Research shows that most urban areas are car-centric. Even in cities constructed before the advent of the automobile, vehicles have taken over most streets. This presents challenges for people to use human powered modes (walking, bicycling, scooters) for day to day activities such as commuting, shopping, exercise, and staying socially connected. This has contributed to the decline in physical and psychological health and a rise in obesity rates. In addition, vehicle-focused communities and cities contribute to high rates of fossil fuel use, high transportation costs, land use dedicated to parking and other vehicle-focused use, traffic congestion, and environmental degradation. Vehicle-centric land-use and transportation planning has led to sprawl and disconnected communities (Zhang & Mu 2019). To counter these effects, attention is now turning to modifying existing built environments, connected rural-to-urban greenways, and rethinking how to plan and design new communities. Walkability is also important in discussions on net zero emission, and on creating livable, sustainable communities. See the following story map and walkability study in Jamaica:   https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/86803b84b1f74f3ab1aa5448af2d9846  

The results of this survey, with data gathered from pedestrians around the world, can be visualized on the map below. The green symbols represent walkable areas, and the hollow symbols represent "not walkable" areas, as defined by those filling out the crowdsourced survey.

This study is a proof of concept to encourage you to do something similar with (1) ArcGIS Online, (2) Story Maps, (3) Operations Dashboards, all from Esri ( www.esri.com ). Using online tutorials  such as this one that the author (Joseph Kerski) created , you can map and study something in your own community with these same tools. After you have mapped it and studied it, show it to others to raise awareness, and take action! Make your community a better place to live.

Keep learning!

Selected wonderful books that I have read about walking:

Bryson, Bill. 1998. A Walk in the Woods. This is probably one of the funniest books I've read about walking, in true Bill Bryson style!

Forsthoefel, Andrew. 2018. Walking to Listen: 4,000 miles across America, One Story at a Time.

MacFarlane, Robert. 2013. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.  https://www.amazon.com/Old-Ways-Journey-Foot-Landscapes/dp/0147509793  MacFarlane walks the tidal flats east of Essex, a sacred mountain in Tibet, visits a library of walking experiences in Madrid, and many other gems both on and off trail.

Mann, Barney Scout. 2020. Journeys North: The Pacific Crest Trail. This book, like no other, answered my questions about how through-hikers really do it - the logistics, and also the community that forms and bonds around shared experiences on the trail.

Montgomery, Ben. 2014. Grandma Gatewood's Walk. The inspiring story of the Woman who saved the Appalachian Trail.

Montgomery, Ben. 2018. The Man Who Walked Backwards. Little, Brown, Spark, 304 p.

Strayed, Cheryl. 2012. Wild: From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail. This is probably the most famous recent book about walking.

Wayne, Chris. 2014. The Last Great Walk. The true story of a 1909 walk from New York to San Francisco and why it matters today. Rodale. 236 p.

Winn, Raynor. 2019. The Salt Path. Inspiring story of a middle aged couple who become homeless and decide to walk the entire coastal path around southwest England!

To learn how I created this story map, see my tutorial here:  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4ac3784538064850bcea91ae588e6392 

To learn how I created the survey, mapped the results, and communicated the results, see my tutorial "collecting analyzing" - here:  https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/collecting-mapping-analyzing-communicating-field/ba-p/883401 

To learn how I created this dashboard, see:  https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/a-new-workshop-on-how-to-use-create-and-teach-with/ba-p/1200951 

More Selected Books:

Allen, Frederick Lewis. 1952. The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900-1950. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Allen, Gary L. 2004. Human Spatial Memory. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Campoli, Julie. 2012. Made for walking: Density and Neighborhood Form. Cambridge MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Chatwin, Bruce. 1988. The Songlines. New York: Penguin.

Coverley, Merlin. 2010. Psychogeography: The Pocket Essential Guide. Harpenden, UK: Pocket Essentials.

Cumming, John. 1981. Runners and walkers: A nineteenth century sports chronicle. Chicago: Regnery Gateway.

Downs, Roger M. and David Stea, Editors. 1973. Image and Environment: Cognitive mapping and spatial behavior. Chicago: Aldine.

Goffman, Erving. 1971. Relations in Public: Microstudies of the public order. New York: Basic Books.

Groeger, John A. 2000. Understanding driving: Applying cognitive psychology to a complex everyday task. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.

Haprin, Lawrence. 1966. Freeways. New York: Reinhold.

Hill, Michael R. 1984. Walking, Crossing streets, and choosing pedestrian routes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Hillman, Mayer, and Anne Whalley. 1979. Walking is transport. London: Policy Studies Institute.

Hoffecker, John F. 2011. Landscape of the Mind: Human Evolution and the Archaeology of Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hole, Graham. 2007. The Psychology of Driving. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ingold Tim, and Jo Lee Vergunst, eds. 2008. Ways of Walking: Ethnography and practice on Foot. Aldershot UK: Ashgate, 2008.

Jackson, Kenneth T. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lummis, Charles F. 1892. A tramp across the continent. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Marchetti, C. 1994. Anthropological invariants in travel behavior. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 47:75-88.

Marples, Morris. 1959. Shanks's Pony: A study of Walking. London: J.M. Dent & Sons.

Maruch, Christof, and Thomas Zeller, eds. 2008. The world beyond the windshield: Roads and landscapes in the United States and Europe. Athens: University of Ohio Press.

Nicholson, Geoff. 2008. The Lost Art of Walking: The history, science, philosophy, and literature of pedestrianism. New York: Riverhead Books.

Norton, Peter. 2008. Fighting traffic: The Dawn of the motor age in the American City. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

O'Sullivan, Timothy M. 2011. Walking in Roman Culture. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ratey, John J., with Eric Hagerman. 2008. Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York: Little, Brown.

Rodaway, Paul. 1994. Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense, and Place. London: Routledge.

Rose, Jessice, and James G. Gamble, eds. 1994. Human Walking. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

Rudofsky, Bernard. 1969. Streets for people: A primer for Americans. Garden City NY: Doubleday.

Self, Will. 2007. Psychogeography: Disentangling the Modern Condundrum of Psyche and Place: New York: Bloomsbury.

Solnit, Rebecca. 2000. Wanderlust: A history of walking. New York: Viking.

Speck, Jeff. 2012. Walkable City: How downtown can save America, one step at a time. New York: Farrar, Strous and Giroux.

Stanford, Craig. 2003. Upright: The evolutionary key to becoming human. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Tenner, Edward. 2003. Our own devices: The past and future of body technology. New York: Alfred A Knopf.

Tolman, Edward C. 1948. Cognitive maps in rats and men. Psychological Review 55(4): 189-208.

Vanderbilt, Tom. 2008. Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Welsh, Charles (ed). 1905. Chauffeur Chaff or Automobilia. Boston: H.M. Caldwell.

A  list of walking book titles from the Jefferson County Public Library system, Colorado. 

References

• Lo, R. H. (2009). Walkability: what Is it?. J. Urbanism: Int. Res. Placemaking Urban Sustainability 2, 145–166. doi:10.1080/17549170903092867
• Reeman M Rehan,( 2013) "Sustainable streetscape as an effective tool in sustainable urban design," HBRC, pp. 173-186,
• United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2019). Smog, Soot, and Other Air Pollution from Transportation. Retrieved from Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/smog-soot-and local-air-pollution on November 11 2021
• Zhang, X., & Mu, L. (2019). The perceived importance and objective measurement of walkability in the built environment rating. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 0(0), 1-17. doi:10.1177/23998083|9832305

Survey and Map by Joseph Kerski, PhD GISP, Geographer.