Promotion of Walking Papers
London Conference Final Comments
Rodney Tolley
Summary: It does seem to me we are at a very interesting time as far as researching walking is concerned. There is an explosion of interest, but as yet not an explosion of funding and resources. But I think we are beginning to understand much better the what issues are, and for me, if we are trying to look at an agenda for a future research programme we should look no further than the results of the Delphi survey that CAST has just completed on the opinions of Europes walking experts on what walking in Europe will be like by 2010. Some of you will be familiar with the results of that, they have been alluded to at this conference and they will be in the Proceedings when they come out later in the year. ... More
"How Carsharing Can Reduce the ''Drive to Drive'' and Improve Walkability"
Chris Bradshaw, Ottawa Canada
Summary: The Kyoto Accord has brought a new wave of scrutiny to the private automobile. But it is focusing us on only one of the car’s impacts: emissions. The car problem, however, as walking advocates know, is much broader and more profound. What the author addresses in this paper, is how the sharing of cars, as opposed to our regime of private ownership, can achieve dramatically greater walkability by effecting changes in many areas that are usually ignored: how cars are used and how they are designed, both of which are influenced by the form of car-access. The potential of turning away from the current One-Person, One-Car Orientation (OPOCO) will evoke protestations. “People love their cars!” Since society provides shared rights-of-way but leaves car-access up to the individual, we have created a feast-or-famine proposition in which there are too many cars, the cars are poorly utilized, and they are much larger than the vast majority of trips require. In the last 15 years carsharing has joined taxis, car-rental, and ridesharing as ways to share cars: together I call them Metered Access to Shared Cars (MASC). They jointly represent a way to not only greatly reduce peak demands for both roads and parking lots – which increases sprawl – but to make the way cars are driven more pedestrian-friendly. MASC reduces OPOCO’s “drive to drive” by: a) shifting costs from fixed to variable, eliminating car-owners’ efforts to do extra driving to amortize $6000-12,000/year invariable costs, while making the whole cost of each trip more readily apparent; b) having shared cars everywhere people need to be so they don’t have to take a car around everywhere just to have one available if the need arises; and c) increasing the “fuss” of car access by requiring a short walk and some planning. MASC also reduces the amount of car – weight, power, rigidness of its shell – used for each trip by making the vehicle choice a trip-by-trip decision, rather once-every-five-year decision. MASC brings into play many driving/vehicle factors that walkability debates usually ignore, specifically the five Fs: how Frequent/Far, Fast, and “Fazed/Frantically” the vehicle is driven, and how “Fat” and “Filthy” the vehicle being driven is. The paper shows how each is reduced when MASC is used, primarily through reducing sprawl, increasing scrutiny of driver behaviour by the provider, and allowing for the introduction pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood vehicles (NVs) in place of standard highway-friendly cars. Because most MASC vehicles are equipped with GPS readers, as well as scheduling and tracking software, sharing – both consecutive and simultaneous – becomes practical. The author sees carsharing and ridesharing merging first to introduce it to suburban neighbourhoods and business parks where carsharing is non-existent and ridesharing is very limited. He offers 11 additional actions that will bring about a new form of car-access and a new environment for walking, hopefully in time to shape the form of the “automobilization” of Asia, Africa, and South America. ... More
(LTP) Local Traffic Performance design strategy and instrument.
Albert Jansen
Summary: Urban planners and traffic engineers do not always work as well together as we would like. To improve cooperation, the Local Traffic Performance (LTP) project tries to integrate the planning practices from both disciplines. LTP stimulates closer collaboration between urban and transport planners through mutual consultation and by means of mutual use of computational models. Local Traffic Performance is an instrument for smart planning of transport infrastructure, and residential and zoning plan areas. Its aim is to reduce energy use in traffic and transport. It can be deployed at a local level by municipalities. LTP can also serve to enhance traffic safety, to increase the quality of urban development and to decrease noise emissions. LTP shows the consequences of spatial policy for new housing and reconstruction developments to all involved stakeholders already during the process of decision making. In short, LTP is a methodology for smart planning processes and uses modelling as a tool. This paper describes the new instrument and its first results. Transport accounts for about 50 percent of the energy consumption of the average Dutch household. A study by Janse (1997) into the relationship between environmental planning and energy consumption in traffic and transport indicates that environmental planning considerably influences energy consumption in traffic and transport. The study shows that various planning aspects on different scale levels influence energy consumption. In Figure 1 the influence is shown as the reduction in energy use that can be achieved by dedicated policies and as increases in energy use when no clear policies are developed. ... More
2009 Benchmarking
Understanding the characteristics, needs and abilities of walkers | Jim Walker, Walk21
Summary: The project aims to implement a common practical international measuring tool for the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative information to help define and benchmark walkability; compare results; and monitor the impact and effectiveness of further investment. ... More
99 percent perspiration - breeding a successful community walking for health initiative
Andrew Stuck and Pam Rouquette
Summary: Established in 1996, Salisbury's Walking Forum and its Salisbury District Walking for Health project, is one of Britain's longest running and most successful walking for health initiatives, with more than 1000 led walks having been completed. A pedestrian-friendly walking network has evolved. Innovative walking initiatives have been tried and tested - this paper will highlight the key lessons to be learnt in creating a successful community walking initiative. The Forum evolved by broadening its remit and widening its membership to include volunteers and professionals in health promotion, recreation, sport, tourism and transport, and succeeded in raising the profile of walking, evidenced by the increasing popularity of the walks themselves, achieved through the work of a volunteer champion. ... More
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