United States Department of Transportation
i
Evaluating How the Quality of Pedestrian Infrastructure Affects the Choice to Walk
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2019-09-01
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Edition:Final report, Mar. 2018 – Mar. 2019
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Abstract:While the benefits of walking are well understood, the physical design of sidewalks and their maintenance needs generally receive much less attention in both research and practice than the infrastructure used by other modes of transportation. As a result, we know comparatively little about how the design of sidewalks and quality of the overall pedestrian environment affect the decision to walk. In this study the authors conducted a household travel survey to collect data on walking frequency and attributes related to sidewalk quality and the quality of the walking environment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The authors used summary statistics and statistical modeling to identify sidewalk and related infrastructure attributes associated with more walking. The study results are limited by a smaller than anticipated sample size; however, the authors are able to reach several conclusions. The authors find that walking accounts for a larger share of trips than many prior studies, something they attribute to asking respondents to report walking trips for recreation and pleasure. Surveys that only ask about transportation or commuting trips may be underestimating the frequency that the population walks and the importance of pedestrian infrastructure. The authors also find, as prior studies have, that neighborhood scale land-use characteristics such as density and land-use mix are significant factors in explaining differences in walking. At the infrastructure level, the authors find that a lack of marked crosswalks where residential streets cross higher volume roads is significantly associated with less walking. The authors do not find any other significant infrastructure affects, something they attribute to their small sample size. Having sidewalks and maintaining them well was reported by respondents to be most important for encouraging walking.
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