Purpose

As a mode of transport, walking suffers from ubiquity – its importance is hidden in plain sight. Recent research in New Zealand and the UK has attempted to quantify to the significance of walking and its relationship with street design to inform urban planning decisions.

Method

In New Zealand, Auckland Council’s Business Case for Walking examined the economic value of foot travel in Auckland city centre. Here, on a typical weekday, 500,000 trips are made by foot. This study examined user benefits to determine the net present value (NPV) of delays to people using pedestrian crossings.

A second study in this programme examined the relationship between Auckland’s effective job density (EJD), labour productivity and the effects of increasing job density via walkability.

In the UK, the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s Mini-Holland Programme sought to increase cycling, walking and public transport use. Interventions included low-traffic neighbourhoods, new junction designs and protected space for cycling along main roads.

Results

The NPV of pedestrian crossing delays along Queen Street, the main street in central Auckland, totalled $186m compared to a best-case scenario. This implies that pedestrian delay could be costed as a function of street design.

Changes to the street environment to increase EJD by 1% in Auckland city centre would increase the value of the study area’s economy by 0.53%. This demonstrates a statistically significant relationship between urban design and macroeconomics.

In Waltham Forest, residents of areas receiving Mini-Holland interventions were cycling an extra nine minutes per week and walking an extra 32 minutes per week. In addition to the health benefits of everyday physical activity, this also has had a positive impact on air quality and motor traffic reduction.

Conclusion

These examples are part of a wider discourse which show that the benefits of pedestrian-friendly urban design can be quantified and, in turn, used to inform policymaking and evaluation. The onus is on decision-making bodies to enshrine these types of findings as part of the process by which the built environment is designed, built and managed.

Inclusive access - the ability of all people to participate- is central to walkable environments. However, there is a risk that without measurable indicators of inclusive access, it can get trumped by safety or amenity values. This presentation will present desktop and observational survey methods to compare inclusive access as a component of walkability at community and street levels. Inclusive access requires consideration of human variety, including physical and sensory characteristics and capabilities; fluctuating states and variation in wellness; and the impacts of income on people’s access choices. Although humans are unique, there are visible proxies (such as gender, walking speed, and mobility aid use) that can be used to compare inclusiveness in different places. Community catchment analyses, using age, gender and ethnicity-specific rates of disability as well as income levels, can be used to identify the relative need for investment in accessible (walkable) environments.

Considering the impact of participation on wellbeing, the presentation will argue for “safety: access: amenity” as ordered, guiding principles for investment in more walkable places.

Purpose

The concept of liveability is found in urban policy discourse globally.  Liveable neighbourhoods are underpinned by walkable neighbourhoods, and offer proximity to things needed for our daily living.  However, levels of liveability and walkability are not equally distributed across a city.  Across the past seven years, our liveability research programme has defined liveability through a social determinants of health lens; and have measured its sub-domains:  food, transport, social infrastructure, employment, walkability, housing, green infrastructure and the ambient environment.  Our definition is referenced in state policies in Australia, and our urban liveability spatial indicators are used by federal and local governments.  This presentation will describe methods for calculating and communicating high resolution spatial measures of urban liveability, and its association with walking and cardiometabolic outcomes.

Methods

An urban liveability index (ULI) was developed as a composite measure of liveability for residential addresses in Melbourne, Australia. These were linked with VISTA travel survey (2012) participants for analysis against transport mode choice; and with some refinement, the Victorian Population Health Survey (VPHS, 2014) participants for analysis with physical activity and health outcomes. 

Results

The ULI was positively associated with walking for transport (VPHS Adjusted odds ratio per interquartile range change in ULI: 1.63, 95% CI 1.48, 1.78) and negatively associated with body mass index (VPHS kg/m² per IQR change in ULI: -0.35; 95% CI -0.55, -0.16). A pilot interactive map was developed for visualising the distribution of the ULI and its sub-domains.

Conclusions

The concept of liveability is an accessible means of communicating research on the social determinants of health to diverse audiences, and we identified spatial inequities in its delivery across Melbourne. Widespread availability of open data, powerful computing and open source software offers new opportunities for measuring neighbourhood attributes that promote active living in diverse cities. Liveability indicators are now being estimated for urban dwellings across Australia's 21 largest cities and other cities, globally.  An urban observatory with interactive maps visualising the spatial distribution of the ULI and its domains will be launched in 2020.