If you build it who will come? The effects of changing the urban environment in walking behaviour : Phd Thesis
Abstract and Figures
Cities worldwide are investing in infrastructural interventions towards the promotion of
pedestrian-friendly, walking conducing urban environments. On one hand, walking has been
associated with numerous social, health and economic benefits, being the most elementary
mean of people moving around, integrating and living the urban space and accomplishing
salutary physical activity. On the other hand, current challenges cities face regarding
sustainability goals and affirmative action on the climate crisis have called for a shift in
the urban mobility paradigm towards active travel.
Making cities more walkable has been put forward as a mean to achieve such goals.
The rationale for it is that a friendlier walking environment can positively influence walking
behaviour, increasing pedestrian activity, hence making more people walk more. There is
solid evidence on the benefits of walking and on the influence of the built environment in
shaping walking behaviour. However, there is a lack of clear evidence on a causal relation
between built-environment interventions and walking behaviour change.
As a result, planning –and implementation- of environmental interventions to
promote walking seems to be made on the reasonable expectation of “if you build it they
will come”. The effectiveness of such interventions in walking behaviour has been addressed
only in few studies, which in turn and have provided mixed evidence. Other current
literature gaps include the lack of longitudinal walkability analysis and the identification
of relevant factors in triggering walking behaviour change.
This study aims is to deepen the understanding of how built environment interventions
towards the promotion of walking can influence walking behaviour. A relational
model of the influence of built environment change in walking behaviour change was
developed drawing from various travel theoretical behaviour frameworks, leading to the
formulation of the following hypothesis: 1) Positive association between walkability and
pedestrian activity and walking experience; 2) Exposure, Perception and Experience to
be significant predictors of behavioural change; 3) Pedestrian segments are associated to
different outcomes; and 4) Intervention results bear distinct "success" levels in relation to
the type of walking behaviour of interest.
A comprehensive longitudinal analysis was performed in a real world case study - the
Eixo Central street improvement project in Lisbon. Data on walkability, pedestrian activity
and walking behaviour was collected before and after the intervention, by performing
respectively walkability audits, pedestrian counts and a survey.
The results confirmed the existence of a significant and positive association between
improving walkability and increasing pedestrian activity. Moreover the actual use of the
improved environment, the perception of improvement in a few attributes and satisfaction
with the walking experience were found to be significant predictors of increasing walking
for five different purposes, namely utilitarian, recreational, walking for public transport,
walking for exercise and route change. Another finding was that attitudes towards the role
of the car in the city vs. public space were the main differentiator of pedestrian segments
and that attitudes played a role in how the individual perceived the environment.
Findings of this study suggest that the magnitude of environmental improvements
are determinant in the behavioural response. Small scale interventions may produce effects
in well being, but are not effective in increasing walking levels. Larger scale interventions
which de facto change walkability levels significantly may produce desired, yet moderate,
effects in increasing physical activity levels and modal shift towards walking. However,
larger scale interventions are more prone to public and political opposition especially if
road space is reallocated. Integrated land use-transport planning with clearer goal setting
is key to achieve urban sustainability goals.
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Psychological Perspectives on Walking provides a comprehensive overview of the benefits of walking and shows how we can encourage people to walk more based on psychological principles. It examines how walking significantly improves health, positively impacts the environment, contributes to resolving social issues, and boosts the local micro-economy. This pioneering book discusses psychological motivations for walking versus not walking and asserts research-based arguments in favour of walking, including both theoretical considerations and everyday concerns.
The book investigates the motivations that can lead to increased walking, advises on how to build walking-conducive habits, and recommends strategies for decision makers for promoting changes that will allow walking to thrive more easily. The authors include success stories and lessons learned from what have become known as 'walkable' cities to show how interventions and initiatives can succeed on a practical basis.
This accessible, practical book is essential for urban planners; health specialists; policy makers; traffic experts; psychology, civil engineering, and social sciences students; and experts in the field of sustainable mobility. Psychological Perspectives on Walking will appeal to anyone in the general population in favour of a sustainable and healthy lifestyle.
Although green interventions, like nature-based solutions, contribute to more sustainable urban environments and provide ecosystem services to urban populations, some impacts are not well understood. This particularly applies to social impacts in the domain of environmental justice, including (green) gentrification. Gentrification refers to a process in which green urban renewal raises property prices, which results in an influx of affluent people, displacing poorer residents. Our study conducts a meta-analysis based on 37 primary hedonic pricing studies, to estimate value transfer functions that can assess the effects of nature types on property prices in various urban settings. Urban nature has positive impacts on house value in the areas surrounding it, which depend on population density, distance to, and the type of, urban nature. We illustrate how the estimated benefit transfer function can be applied to natural interventions in a Dutch city, and visualize the obtained effects using mapping. These maps show the distance decay of the cumulative effects of urban nature interventions on the house value at the city and the neighbourhood levels. Our application estimated increases in local property values up to a maximum of 20 % compared with properties not affected by the interventions, with value equivalent of 62,650 USD, at average prevailing price level in a particular area in Utrecht. When new nature is being planned in urban areas our mapping approach can be used for guiding assessments of potential undesirable effects on property values that may lead to green gentrification, and for identifying where additional policies may be needed to contribute to environmental justice.
Despite their growing application and worldwide diffusion, the transformative potential of experiments aimed at achieving “streets for people” rather than “streets for traffic” remains largely under researched. There is little to no comparative assessment of already existing experiments, and no critical reflection on their specific added value for systemic change. Building from a literature review and discussion, this paper aims to fill this gap by addressing the following questions: Which types of city street experiments have been undertaken in the pursuit of the vision of “streets for people” instead of “streets for traffic”? What are their backgrounds, main characteristics, and reported impacts? And perhaps most importantly: How can these city street experiments trigger systemic change in urban mobility? These elements are detailed per experiment type, in order of ascending functional complexity: the re-marking of streets, the re-purposing of car parking, the re-purposing of sections of streets, and the re-purposing of entire streets. Illustrative examples from practice include intersection repairs, parklets, the pavement to plazas programme, play streets, ciclovias and open streets. The reviewed literature documents positive impacts on physical activity, active transportation, safety and social interaction and capital, and more mixed impacts on business activity. While street experiments aim to create fundamentally different arrangements of urban mobility, their potential as triggers of a greater systemic change is unclear. This paper uses the defining characteristics of “transition experiments” – a concept derived from the field of transition studies – to develop and illustrate a framework to assess this transformative potential. In the conclusions, the review and assessment framework are used to sketch a research and policy agenda for this increasingly topical phenomenon.
Reliable and detailed data are required for the evaluation of pro-bike investments. Longitudinal studies that compare the cycling levels before and after interventions provide crucial information to policy design. In cities where cycling is starting to grow, little data is available. The expansion of the cycling network and the implementation of a public e-bike sharing system were an opportunity to conduct a before-after evaluation of the effects of these two policies in cycling levels, in Lisbon, Portugal.
A “pen-and-paper” method for cyclists’ manual counts was refined and tested. Data was collected from 2016 to 2018 in the city center, where significant changes to the built environment took place, as well as in an external control area. Four different types of locations were observed regarding the existence of cycling infrastructure and bike-sharing service. Besides flow, data included gender, helmet use, and bicycle type. The results revealed a 3.5-fold growth between 2016 and 2017 when the segregated cycling network was expanded in the city center, and an added 2.5-fold growth between 2017 and 2018, after the bike-sharing launching. City-wide, from 2017 to 2018, women’s share increased from 15% to 22%, mostly driven by bike-sharing usage, while helmet use decreased from 45% to 30%. Bike-sharing accounted for 34% of all observed trips in 2018.
Our findings suggest that “hard” measures to encourage cycling, such as cycling networks and bike-sharing systems, can have considerable impacts on raising levels of bicycle modal share in a low cycling maturity city. Furthermore, the method allowed to distinguish cyclists using their bicycles from those using the bike-sharing system. Hence, we could isolate the effects of the two measures – provision of infrastructure and implementation of the bike-sharing system. The method proved to be a simple and effective way for city authorities and practitioners to collect detailed baseline and follow up data.
Smallholder farmers’ responses to the climate-induced agricultural changes are not uniform but rather diverse, as response adaptation strategies are embedded in the heterogonous agronomic, social, economic, and institutional conditions. There is an urgent need to understand the diversity within the farming households, identify the main drivers and understand its relationship with household adaptation strategies. Typology construction provides an efficient method to understand farmer diversity by delineating groups with common characteristics. In the present study, based in the Uttarakhand state of Indian Western Himalayas, five farmer types were identified on the basis of resource endowment and agriculture orientation characteristics. Factor analysis followed by sequential agglomerative hierarchial and K-means clustering was use to delineate farmer types. Examination of adaptation strategies across the identified farmer types revealed that mostly contrasting and type-specific bundle of strategies are adopted by farmers to ensure livelihood security. Our findings show that strategies that incurred high investment, such as infrastructural development, are limited to high resource-endowed farmers. In contrast, the low resourced farmers reported being progressively disengaging with farming as a livelihood option. Our results suggest that the proponents of effective adaptation policies in the Himalayan region need to be cognizant of the nuances within the farming communities to capture the diverse and multiple adaptation needs and constraints of the farming households.
Life events, such as childbirth or retirement, provide a crucial opportunity in which an individual’s habitual travel routines are disrupted and they may be especially susceptible to changing their travel behaviour. The transition to parenthood is one such period in which numerous life events occur but also in which car orientated travel practices tend to be adopted. While much is known about how travel behaviour changes during this period, there is little research explaining the processes in which car orientated travel practices are adopted. This paper addresses this gap using the results from twenty-five semi-structured interviews with parents of young children. The interviews illuminated that while a general pattern of increasing car orientation was apparent among most participants, five distinct mobility trajectories were evident. These ranged from those who had little change in their car dependent travel behaviour through to respondents from formerly carless households who experienced a dramatic rise in car use. Further, it became apparent that the first few years following the birth of a child is a period in which numerous changes can act to punctuate stable travel routines. Each change represents an opportunity to intervene and encourage the adoption of more sustainable travel behaviour. However, these findings suggest that in order to encourage families to adopt more sustainable travel practices, planners and policymakers would need to address the many transport and housing factors facilitating car orientated travel practices.
This manuscript seeks to evaluate changes in the travel behavior of young children (5–6 y/o.) and their caregivers following the implementation of a 4-month program in public preschools in São Paulo (Brazil) with a high prevalence of low-income immigrants. The program was developed around two intervention types: i) weekly inquiry sessions about urban mobility through the Philosophy with Children approach and ii) bimonthly outdoor walking activities in the surroundings of schools. In this way, it was possible to observe positive changes in the perceptions of children's statements and in the social norms of their caregivers about transportation, as well as significant modal shifts as reported by caregivers towards sustainable mobility, which were evaluated using difference-in-differences and time-series analyses.
Besides the identification of changes in the behavior of adult caregivers through child-centered intervention types, this empirical research enabled unraveling the effect of the proposed measures according to the child's gender, nationality, and level of social vulnerability, including the significant modal shifts towards walking and cycling identified among caregivers of boys and out of car and motorcycle among those of native children, which were significant both in post and follow-up measures.
In addition to contributions to the evaluation of school-based interventions with data from developing countries, the discussions presented in this paper intend to provide insights into the role of early childhood and perceptions in behavioral changes towards sustainable transport.
Introduction: Promoting walking has become a policy concern in the public health and transport
fields. Street improvement interventions aimed at increasing walking require an assessment of
their effectiveness in influencing walking behaviour. There is a current gap in understanding how
the magnitude of a change in walkability relates to a change in pedestrian volumes and walking
experience.
Methods: This study reports a before-after analysis of the effects of a built environment intervention
in the walking behaviour of adults in Lisbon, Portugal. The Eixo Central project aimed at
improving walking conditions by changing physical factors in three sites – two avenues connected
by a plaza. Each site had particular and distinct improvement approaches. We performed a
before-after walkability assessment of the intervention area using a validated methodology, a
longitudinal analysis of the pedestrian volumes in the intervention sites and control areas, and a
quasi-longitudinal survey on the walking experience of residents, workers and frequent visitors of
the area.
Results: The Eixo Central project improved overall walking conditions. Walkability scores point to
changes of different magnitude in the walkability of each of the three sites. The results show a
significant change in the sites’ pedestrian volumes and walking experience between baseline and
follow up, and a non-significant change in the control areas’ pedestrian volumes in the same
period. We found higher walkability changes to be associated with a higher increase in pedestrian
volumes and to a higher positive influence in walking experience. Conversely, smaller scale
walkability changes were associated with a less expressive change in pedestrian volumes and
walking experience.
Conclusions: The results suggest that the scale of walkability change of environmental interventions
is a significant factor in influencing walking behaviour. In this sense, smaller-scale
interventions may be effective in improving the walking experience but not as effective in
increasing walking activity.
Active travel is associated with various health, environmental, social, and economic benefits. However, barriers exist in active travel activities and promotion. In particular, cycling and walking tend to be more severely affected by inclement weather than encapsulated modes, such as passenger and transit vehicles. This study analyzes the impacts of weather and climate conditional changes on the usage of twin multi-use trails in Seattle, United States. Both comparative analysis and residual regression analysis methods are used to examine the impacts. The buffered effects of rainfall on cycling and walking are particularly investigated. The findings indicate that at the daily level, weather conditions are more influential on active travel on the two trails on weekdays than on weekends. Nevertheless, cyclists and pedestrians on weekdays tend to be more resilient to weather influence than weekend riders and walkers at the hourly level. Cycling could be more severely influenced by weather condition changes than walking, especially on weekdays. The concurrent rainfall not only affects the concurrent active travel, but it also affects the usage of trails 1 h earlier. Comparatively, the delay effects of rainfall on active travel can last a longer period of time for cycling on weekdays. Note that self-selection in a time-series data analysis, particularly at a finer temporal scale, must be controlled. This study discusses the implications of these findings and highlights the potentials of accurate real-time or near real-time weather prediction, weather information push service for active travelers, and facilities’ clearing in improving the cycling and walking experience.
Walkability is defined as the extent to which the built environment is friendly to people who walk, which benefits the health of residents and increases the liveability of cities, and studies of walkability have increasingly attracted the attention of researchers worldwide. To provide a roadmap for research on neighbourhood/community walkability, this paper critically reviews the literature on neighbourhood/community walkability studies using geographical information systems (GIS), which is an objective tool universally used in this area. The literature review covers 136 papers that were published between 2008 and 2018 and retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Firstly, a bibliometric analysis is conducted to give a general view of recent studies. Secondly, a detailed critical review is performed from three major perspectives concerning neighbourhood walkability, namely, walkability measurements, the built environment and health, and the applications of walkability. Finally, research trends and future directions are discussed. The implications include: (a) factors affecting walkability and their interactions should be investigated; (b) more accurate data need to be available for the measurement of walkability; (c) relevant research in the contexts of different countries could be expanded and compared; (d) the application of walkability could be developed in terms of depth and width.