Walkability

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Pictures of conditions and factors that influence the walkability of a neighbourhood are offered here in a slideshow. Most of the shots were taken by Katherine Childs (http://www.khchilds.com), with additional shots from Paul Hess and Jane Farrow.

What is Walkability?

Walkability is a quantitative and qualitative measurement of how inviting or un-inviting an area is to pedestrians. Walking matters more and more to towns and cities as the connection between walking and socially vibrant neighbourhoods is becoming clearer. Built environments that promote and facilitate walking - to stores, work, school and amenities – are better places to live, have higher real estate values, promote healthier lifestyles and have higher levels of social cohesion.

When you think of an area you like to walk, it probably has certain conditions or features that make it walker-friendly. For many that means wide well-maintained sidewalks, benches, good lighting, direct routes, interesting stores, buildings and amenities. For others it might mean shady green spaces, quieter routes or places where strollers, dogs and scooters are welcome. Walkability is a subjective measurement – some people like to stroll quietly on sidestreets, while others seek out the hustle and bustle of busy commercial districts. Often these subjective considerations are about our desire to be safe, others times its about aesthetic preferences.

Examining the walkability of a neighbourhood, town or city is an important factor to consider when thinking about making places more welcoming, livable and safe. Areas where lots of people are around, shopping, going to work or school, or just hanging out are considered more desirable living places which promote social connectedness, healthy lifestyles and reduce car dependence and green house gas emissions.

Our Walkability Tool Kit is a very basic introduction to the concepts of walkability and offers some simple tools to help you measure and capture the walking environment in your neighbourhood. The process helps connect local residents, raises awareness about what makes a community walkable, and the data and observations collected can be useful in the larger goal of making improvements.

The Walkability Slide Show offers many examples of the elements and factors influencing the walkability of a given area. The Walkability Checklist provides much the same material in a document which can be printed off and used to record local walking conditions. The strengths and weaknesses of a walking environment can be better appreciated by talking about it in a group. For this we provide a list of Discussion Topics. Finally, we provide a few suggestions for what to do with your findings and how you might consider moving forward with a wider set of stakeholders, community members, planners and politicians in our section on Making Improvements.