Making Walking* Rock

The asterisk in the title here is intended to indicate that when I say walking, I don't just mean locomotion on two feet. I mean whatever way someone gets around legally on a sidewalk: walking, rolling in a wheelchair, pushing a stroller, jogging, running, etc.

I mean, in other words, not taking transit but also not taking a personal vehicle or hired car.

And the best way to design cities is to make this experience as good as possible and as usable for as much of life as possible. 

Why? Because every other mode requires this too, at some level. The train or bus stop may be a few blocks from your destination or the parking space you find might be distant and the Uber won't take you inside your destination either. So boosting walking boosts it itself but also all other modes.

So the more we make walking attractive, the better transportation outcomes become. And the converse.

So how do we make it attractive?

1. Pedestrianized Areas: A Beautiful Boon

I want more of these, pretty much always. Cities used to be all pretty much like this, if you go far enough back (ie before the car) because the ironclad division of different road uses was less, well, ironclad before cars showed up.

But also we have a lot more people now, so I'm certainly not advocating all cities be all pedestrianized (even if you include spaces for bikes, or even buses/trams, as some cities do). I'm just saying that this:

in Toronto and this

in Croydon are fundamentally appealing to the senses, especially sight as in the above examples that are pictures, but also sound (less car noises!) and smell (less exhaust!). 

Also they produce a situation where walking can get places and do things other modes can't, which also makes it a more attractive way of getting around.

Note that, like the Croydon example, this can be a temporary market: it doesn't need to be a forever pedestrian zone (though I would suggest that you can do a better job of making a real pedestrian-friendly zone if you commit to the bit).

2. Good Sidewalks Make Good Neighbors 

With apologies to Robert Frost's neighbor, it's not fences but sidewalks that make for a good neighborhood feel. By this I mean that not only functional sidewalks (a must!) but also actual elements of the sidewalk environment that actually make it a pleasant place to exist are beneficial. 

This is a very basic example--not like the world's best sidewalk, but a space that Vancouver has that has a good basic sidewalk. Note the following elements: a clear, flat surface with minimal visible points where someone could trip or a wheelchair would catch; enough space (though barely) for both a line to form outside this one shop and people to still navigate past that line; trees providing cover from sun, protection from the street and its cars, and an aesthetic bonus; space between the trees for a newspaper holder (pink, on the left). 

Negative examples abound, so I won't belabor the point, but here we can see a narrow, obstructed sidewalk in Davenport that doesn't have much going for it. Yes, they're improving it by finally putting in a proper curbcut at the corner, but there's no alternate way to get around it in the meantime and the sidewalk is just kind of...minimally there. 

Note how in Toronto there is also a major piece of construction material (the signboard) on the sidewalk, but there's still enough room to get around it and actually walk somewhere.

I'm not advocating explicitly for a massive overhaul of our streetscape so everything is broad and smooth and beautiful (though that would be a great thing), just for something a little more accessible, beautiful, and pleasant to experience.

3. Consider How Much Street Is Street

That might sound tautological, but consider this from Haarlem:

The pedestrian space itself here is fine but basic, like the Vancouver example above: smooth (note the use of tiles or small squares rather than the typical US giant blocks of cement, which I find makes for a more pleasant sidewalk texture), with space for planters and bike parking, and just enough space to pass people. What's key is that there is only one lane of cars to two sidewalks (you can see the other one on the other side just barely in this photo). The narrow street is not used as an excuse to squeeze the pedestrian space, as it would be in the US. Instead, the pedestrians get their space and the remaining space is given to cars. It ends up squeezing the cars, who are all backed up behind that mail vehicle, but there was a lot more pedestrian throughput than cars could have achieved. 

This is not surprising. Good sidewalks get people moving.

What else could we use street width for other than wider cars and more cars? 

Well, this one in Amsterdam has tram tracks (right) and bike path (left) and bike parking/trees (center)--and very little space for cars at all.

(Lest I be accused of overfluffing the Netherlands, here's a Dutch street with plenty of car parking

...though it's still a good sidewalk)

It's not just the Dutch who do this, anyway. Here's a wide Parisian sidewalk, taking up space that in the US would probably be car-centric:

And here's multimodal space that is both pedestrian-friendly and tram-conveying in Paris:

Let's hop across the Channel to London, which can do this too, by Camden Town:

And not to forget North America, here are a couple examples from Vancouver

And DC, where the sidewalk is wide enough to encompass a bikeshare dock easily:

Basically, if we don't assume that the width of the street belongs to the car alone, we can do amazing things for pedestrians. But when we do, we run into the Karl Jilg illustration of our cities, where there is just a massive void where the cars go.

We can do better, and a great place to start is just making pedestrian spaces more attractive--which often translates most effectively to "larger."