Do footpath and crossing retrofits actually encourage walking for all people? Are guidelines inclusive of all potential walkers (and wheelers)? Are planners using statistical modelling to guide retrofit decisions. Or are they using the lived experience of pedestrians? New research offers insights into how to improve current guidelines for pedestrians.
Three New Zealand researchers decided to check out the walkability characteristics of crossings to provide insights for retrofits. Then they looked at whether local design guidelines were providing appropriate advice.
Research highlights are:
• Encouraging walking requires addressing experienced barriers.
•We objectively characterised pedestrian crossings perceived as barriers to walking.
• We compared characteristics with local design guidelines and Healthy Streets.
•Technical documents not specific enough to inform retrofit.
The 56 interview participants were aged 20 to 89 years and living in Auckland. Almost half had some difficulty with either walking, seeing, hearing, or remembering. They reported the attributes that made walking trips difficult or unpleasant, or discouraged them from walking.
Non-signalised crossings were the most frequent barrier mentioned and would fail the Healthy Streets Check assessment. Tight cornering radii, complexity, traffic volumes and speed were also factors in making walking difficult or unpleasant. The authors explain more about this in their article.
Guidelines – how useful are they for inclusive planning?
Guidelines mostly focus on best practice, naming all the aspects that should ideally be in place for a “walkable” environment. However, aspects that could be perceived as barriers are absent from the guidelines. For planners, knowing what to improve first makes for a difficult decision process.
The title of the study is, Pedestrian crossings: Design recommendations do not reflect users’ experiences in a car-dominated environment in Auckland, New Zealand Highlights.
From the abstract
Pedestrian crossings are a key feature both in terms of risk of road trauma and impacts on pedestrian experience. In car-dominated environments, retrofitting existing infrastructure to enable and encourage walking is a challenge. It is unclear what difficulties people experience and whether current design guidelines encompass these.
This study aims to provide a real-world perspective on local design guidelines and the Healthy Streets metrics. We use objective measures of the built environment and users’ perceptions of unfeasibility or difficulty.
Interview participants considered non-signalised crossing points as barriers to access. The Healthy Streets metrics are not set up to enable cities to easily identify these difficult crossings.
These findings provide information needed to improve local guidelines and Healthy Streets metrics to enable them to support proactive retrofit.