Walking is the oldest and simplest form of human mobility. Everyone is a
pedestrian and people walk for many reasons. Many people walk to public
transport, some walk directly to local destinations, to go shopping and do other
business, while many people walk just for recreation. Whatever the type of trip,
walking is usually the first and last mode used, providing an important link
between land use and motorised transport modes. Therefore, walking as a
principal or a secondary mode of transport is an essential part of mobility.
Over the last 100 years, urban environments have been designed for vehicle
traffic flow. As the urban population increased, cities built sophisticated road
systems to facilitate traffic flow for millions of vehicles. However, walking has
been ignored and excluded to a certain extent from urban planning. Only recently
have walking policies appeared on the agenda in European cities. Many local
authorities have undertaken a range of activities to stimulate walking as a daily
transport mode due to potential environmental and health benefits.
Creating walkable environments starts with the built environment. However,
many questions need to be effectively addressed by planners and decisionmakers.
Specifically, how to assess the conditions provided to pedestrians? How
to provide high-quality walking facilities? How to develop effective walking
policies? What will the best approach be in a specific city?
This book summarises part of the work developed within the context of the
research project SPN – Smart Pedestrian Net. Specifically, this book provides
a comprehensive approach for evaluating 23 built environment and streetscape
attributes that influence the decision to walk and the satisfaction one gets from
walking. The proposed SPN approach offers a clear and systematic framework
to help planners and decision-makers in evaluating pedestrian conditions and in
developing walking policies. The guidelines provided in this book were developed
considering the cities of Porto and Bologna but can serve as a reference for
evaluating pedestrian conditions in other similar medium-sized European cities.
The assessment guide is accompanied by a practical implementation of the
walkable conditions in Porto and Bologna. The goal was to provide more detailed
and technical information on how to objectively evaluate a selection of built
environment and streetscape attributes. The guidance offered in this book is
meant to be of real practical use to local authorities and researchers in assessing
pedestrian environments and in helping planners to design policies to improve
walkability. Furthermore, the book could be of use to developers of new standards
in aspects of urban development.
This book should be considered as work in progress with the potential to
encourage debates. Based on received feedback, further revision and refinement
is planned for future work.