Toronto Papers
New Directions in Street Auditing: Lessons from the PERS Audits
David Allen, Transport Research Laboratory, Spencer Clark, Transport for London
Summary: With pedestrian movement and the importance of streetscapes recognised within national and local UK policy, a method was required to effectively assess these types of environment and to identify ways to encourage people to use them. TRL’s Pedestrian Environment Review System (PERS) provides local authorities with a quick and effective method for reviewing all types of pedestrian space and identifying where improvements are most needed. TRL have worked with Transport for London (TfL) in the past three years to further expand upon the capabilities of PERS. PERS reviews have now been applied across Greater London as part of TfL’s drive to better understand the condition of all pedestrian environments within London. This paper aims to discuss the use of PERS by TRL for TfL, TfL’s perspectives on walking and PERS, its capabilities, and the lessons learned from applying the audit tool extensively across Greater London in the past year. ... More
Overcoming the barriers to walking for people who are socially excluded
Roger L Mackett, et al. Centre for Transport Studies, University College London
Summary: Various barriers to mobility prevent some people from walking as much as they wish, which means that they cannot reach as many opportunities as they would like. This raises issues of social exclusion which are an area of increasing concern. It is increasingly being recognised that transport policy should take into account the needs of those who are socially excluded. The objectives of the work described in this paper are: • To identify barriers to walking for people with characteristics that make them socially excluded; • To identify policy actions which can help to overcome the barriers; • To show how the number of opportunities that can be reached are increased if the barriers are removed; • To show which policies are most effective in overcoming the barriers. These issues are being explored in a research project being carried out as part of a large programme looking at ‘Accessibility and User Needs in Transport in a Sustainable Urban Environment’ (AUNT SUE). A GIS-based tool is being developed to examine how transport policies can increase social inclusion by allowing more people to reach various opportunities including shops, medical and welfare centres, employment and leisure facilities. The tool is being used to establish how many people meet accessibility benchmarks defined elsewhere in the project with and without the policy intervention. Micro-level data based upon street audits has been collected for the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, including details such as steps, slopes, access to individual buildings and obstructions on the pavement. In the paper, ways in which the tool will be used to test policies to increase social inclusion are discussed. The results are presented in terms of the numbers of people prevented from reaching some opportunities by barriers to walking and increases in numbers of opportunities that can be reached if the barriers to walking are removed. ... More
Pedestrian Park: a Catalyst for Downtown Revitalization
Dr. Yang Wang
Summary: Pedestrian network reconstruction stimulated by public space renovation has often turned out to seeds grow into rebuild of downtowns. This can be seen in a project being implemented in City of Haikou, Hainan Province, China. As a capital city, Haikou suffered from the 1990s’ economic collapse and the downtown suffered the most. Businesses were closed and the downtown Central Park became poorly maintained. Pedestrian safety was jeopardized which induced continuing decline in downtown commercial services. The City of Haikou was able to identify the needs for revitalizing downtown and its Central Park in 2003. A comprehensive planning process has been initiated by the City which includes three-phase implementation. The first phase encompasses renovation of Central Park and reorganization of park’s boarding roads to facilitate pedestrian movement. The second phase will involve reuse of abandoned lands/buildings after government center relocation away from downtown and general pedestrianization in rest of Plan Area. The third phase will comprise various residential, recreational and commercial developments and a task to integrate all new developments into a pedestrian system in downtown by establishing a regional sidewalk network with the Central Park as a focal point. All development is planned to be completed in 2018. Although development has not completed at the time preparing the report, evidences of improvement present based on data collection by February 2007. ... More
Pedestrian''s physiological responses to varied winter surface conditions
Jennifer A Hsu, Yue Li, Geoff Fernie, University of Toronto
Summary: Studies conducted in countries all over the world have linked winter climates to increased risks of morbidity and mortality. However, researchers have yet to understand the overall effect of the winter climate including consequences of such factors as surface conditions on the human body. The main objectives of this project were to develop a portable ambulatory system for data collection in cold climates and use it to observe physiological and biomechanical effects of cold temperatures and icy surfaces. Furthermore, a laboratory-based experiment was designed in order to otain datasets on 11 young, healthy subjects. Participants were observed in a cold chamber walking at a comfortable pace in three test conditions: 1) on ice with a safety harness and on a rough surface while 2) wearing a harness and 3) without a harness. The ambulatory monitoring system was used to simultaneously record blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, muscle activity, gait parameters, foot pressure and subjective responses to derive a comprehensive understanding of the body's responses. ... More
Putting Predestrians First: Experiencing Pedestrian Priority Zones in Switzerland
Thomas Schweizer, Swiss Pedestrian Association
Summary: This film shows that public spaces with speed limit 20km/h in which pedestrians have the priority over all vehicles are becoming popular places to walk and to stroll, even if there are many vehicles. The interaction between pedestrians and drivers works out quite different than in places with higher speeds or without the legal priority for pedestrians. The film illustrates that this type of radical traffic-calming allows an urban re-design which makes out of the public space a meeting place or even an outdoor living room. ... More
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