Livable Streets Research Articles

Understanding Livable Streets in the Context of the Arterials that Surround Them

Not long after the advent of cars, a conflict between traffic and residential livability arose. The typical response pushed traffic off residential streets and onto nearby major roads. This line of thinking evolved into a hierarchical approach to the street networks and arterial roads designed to carry the majority of vehicle traffic. With many researchers identifying traffic on residential streets to be an underlying issue behind poor livability, this solution makes sense. However, is the relationship between residential livability and traffic moderated by the character of the nearby arterial road? By use of a residential study in Denver, Colorado, 10 arterials were partitioned along two dimensions: high and low traffic and high and low design quality. Comparable residential roads within the surrounding neighborhoods were selected to fit descriptions of heavy, moderate, and light traffic, and 723 residents were surveyed. The results suggest that the surrounding street network—in particular, the character of the nearby arterial road—influences the livability of residential areas on the adjacent streets according to a number of livability measures. When income was controlled for, both high levels of traffic and low levels of urban design on the arterial were found to detract from livability in the surrounding neighborhoods, sometimes more so than the residential street traffic itself. This finding should not be taken as a call to shift traffic onto residential streets. Rather, planners and engineers need to take a broader perspective and consider the whole network to understand livability. Livable residential streets can be only part of the solution; more livable arterials are also needed.

The meaning of livable streets to schoolchildren: An image mapping study of the effects of traffic on children's cognitive development of spatial knowledge

Abstract While much focus has been placed on the physical activity and environmental benefits of providing safe and livable streets for children, few studies look at the mental health and cognitive development benefits from lowering children׳s exposure to threats from traffic. In response, this study uses innovative cognitive mapping methods through a series of focus-group interviews with nine and ten-year schoolchildren to uncover important ways traffic exposure limits children׳s cognitive development of their spatial knowledge. To test for these effects, this study focuses on schoolchildren in two similar suburban neighborhoods and schools in suburbs in the San Francisco Bay Area, but differing in the volume and speed of traffic the students are exposed to during their journeys to and from school. The Cognitive mapping exercises and methods used in this research reveal multi-dimensional effects, including how exposure to traffic, as determined by volume, speed, and the adequacy of walking and bicycling infrastructure, limits children׳s progression along a cognitive development continuum of spatial knowledge. Specifically, the results show that without adequate pedestrian and bicycle facilities to provide sanctuary from automobile traffic, children are overcome by the negative senses of danger and dislike, commensurate with a limited ability to identify qualities of their neighborhood that are memorable, special, or even positive. In contrast, this study finds that children allowed to have higher levels of interaction with the environment, through independent, active travel modes improve their spatial knowledge development. By making neighborhood streets safe, comfortable, and livable, this research establishes some key psychological cognitive benefits associated with lowering a child׳s exposure to automobile traffic by providing adequate pedestrian and bicycle Safe Routes to School (SR2S) infrastructure. Download : Download high-res image (260KB) Download : Download full-size image

A105 The Meaning of “Mean Streets” for Sustainable & Active Travel: Crime, (Pedestrian/Bike) Casualties and Mode Choice

While travel is an inherently linear activity, most studies of the influence of the urban environment on active travel oftentimes attribute coarse, zonal averages to unique individuals, likely missing key details important to pedestrians and bicyclists. This research fills a key knowledge gap by examining: 1) The influence of different types of criminal activity (e.g., property vs violent crime) along different segments of a person’s travel route; 2) The influence of bicycle and pedestrian collision data in combination with criminal activity on sustainable and active travel choices. Finally, this is one first studies to align urban environmental quality measures along an individual’s path, from origin to destination, as well as provide a detailed examination of the choice to bicycle in lieu of other, available modes. This study employs unique methods and metrics through an innovative application of individualized linear spatial units of analyses in combination with detailed geospatial data (on crime, pedestrian and bicycle collisions, and urban design factors) - in sum, disaggregated data for disaggregated research. Many unique datasets were gathered and innovatively applied in this study, including: Geo-located point data on criminal activity, categorized as per the U.S. Department of Justice (major and minor property crimes, major and minor violent crimes, and instances of vandalism), and tested for their varying influence around the respondents’ home, route, and destination. Geo-located point data on pedestrian and bicycle collisions along the respondents’ routes. Many other data on the built environment, socio-demographics, and other important factors (parking availability). Finally, this study analyses these data through various multinomial logit (MNL) predictive models of the choices to walk, bicycle, ride bus, drive-alone, or be dropped-off. The predictive, MNL model results find that different crimes appear to have different effects on different modes: property crimes deter people who may wish to avoid placing personal property at risk—such as parking a vehicle or a bicycle. Violent crimes along-the-route appear to have a significant deterrent to modes where travelers are more exposed to personal risk, such as walking, bicycling and transit ridership. People who may have the option to avoid certain stations with high threats to personal safety, appear to exercise that option, such as people being dropped-off, carpooling or driving alone. Finally, when pedestrian and bicycle casualties are entered into the model, there are changes to the associations with criminal activity. By improving our understanding of the connection between the experiential quality of street ecology (as influenced by crime, pedestrian/bike casualties, and urban design) on people’s choice to engage in sustainable and active travel, This study provides important policy guidance on such efforts as creating safer, more livable streets, CPTED, and the allocation of police resources.

P16 Creating Shared and Livable Streets in the US: An International Case Study for Creating Equitable Streets in an Auto-Dominated Context

P16 Creating Shared and Livable Streets in the US: An International Case Study for Creating Equitable Streets in an Auto-Dominated Context

A60 Can Creating Livable and Complete Streets Improve Children’s Spatial Knowledge? A Cognitive Mapping Study of the Influence of Traffic and Safe Routes to School (SR2S) Projects on Schoolchildren in a US Suburban Context

Abstract Background How do children view their world? What helps them connect with their environment and community? Or, perhaps more importantly, what gets in their way? These are questions that need to be addressed when working to make neighborhoods and streets around schools safe and inviting to children (and their parents) so they can freely walk and/or bicycle to access their education. Building on these safety and physical activity and benefits, this research examines how Safe Routes to School infrastructure (adequate facilities for walking, bicycling and traffic calming), by making neighborhood streets not only safe but comfortable and inviting—in other words, livable—children may be able to progress further along a continuum of cognitive spatial knowledge development. Methods This paper presents the findings of a series of comparative cognitive mapping exercises with 9 and ten-year old schoolchildren to reveal how exposure to traffic--varying by volume, speed, and active travel infrastructure supporting walking and bicycling—influences the development of their spatial knowledge. The results reveal multi-dimensional effects, as well as how constructing safe-routes-to-school improvements (pathways and crosswalks) can potentially strengthen schoolchildren’s progression along a cognitive development continuum. This study focuses on suburban neighborhoods (in the US) with schools placed within walking distance of the majority of children, but lacking key elements to making them truly walkable (sidewalks and direct pathways). This makes them potentially strong candidates for achieving cost-effective benefits from Safe Routes to School (SR2S) improvement projects. This paper additionally presents a brief historical analysis of how such neighborhoods came to be. Results The maps compiled and analyzed in this research show that as exposure to auto traffic volumes and speed decreases, a child’s sense of threat goes down, and his/her ability to establish a higher degree of spatial knowledge as a richer cognitive connection with their community rises. Without pedestrian and bicycle facilities to provide sanctuary for a child from automobile traffic, the negative senses of danger and dislike appear to limits children’s ability to identify the qualities of their neighborhood that are memorable, special, or even positive. Conclusions Retrofitting the Incomplete Neighborhood’s (INs) identified in this study presents an exceptional opportunity for making cost-effective infrastructure investments as schools in these neighborhoods are actually within walking and bicycling distance of schoolchildren— therefore investments to facilitate safe and livable access to school may be small in relation to the relatively large number of children who can gain important safe & livable, and hence inviting access to school. Finally, cognitive mapping exercises like this provide valuable way for children to express their views of the world, and for identifying and assessing the problems and opportunities experienced by children along the routes to school (e.g., important destinations, secret paths, preferred travel routes, and existing barriers). In turn, they can help community members, public staff and policymakers identify and articulate the most cost-effective solutions to making neighborhoods and streets safer and more livable for the children.

Determinants of livable streets in Malaysia: A study of physical attributes of two streets in Kuala Lumpur

Urban Planners have stressed the important role of street physical attributes for enhancing livability and activity in the area. The purpose of this study is to identify physical attributes of streetscapes that influence street livability. Previous studies focused mainly on traffic management as a major determinant of street livability. Studies that address people’s perception of street physical attributes as influencing street livability tend to separate. This study is an empirical examination of people’s perception of the physical attributes of Kuala Lumpur streetscapes. Structured observations and a questionnaire survey were used to identify determinants of street livability in two multi-functional streets located in the inner part of Kuala Lumpur. On the basis of literature review and observation of the studied areas, 14 physical attributes of street were identified and evaluated. Findings show that provision of facilities like paving, maintenance, parking space and traffic calming techniques contribute to street livability in Kuala Lumpur streetscapes. Indeed, the result of this study is recommended to Malaysian practitioners and policymakers. This result indicates the most significant factors that need to pay attention to meet human needs in designing livable spaces in Kuala Lumpur City Center.

Livable streets: The effects of physical problems on the quality and livability of Kuala Lumpur streets

The aim of this article is to understand whether the physical attributes of streetscapes affect the livability of Kuala Lumpur streets. Traffic management has been stressed as the main determinant of livable streets, but physical features have been merely pointed out. Yet, does physical quality deterioration of streetscapes affect the livability degradation of urban spaces? To answer this question, people’s perception towards the physical quality of multifunctional streets, have been examined in this study. Identification of fourteen streetscape’s physical attributes was fulfilled based on a comprehensive literature review. Through structured observations and questionnaire surveys, the physical attributes of each case study was evaluated and the physical problems were discovered. Additionally, users’ perception on the identified problems and their effects on livability of the studied areas were found and defined. The result revealed that physical problems like improper walkway paving, inadequate public services and maintenance, besides traffic congestion, are deteriorating the livability of streets.

Safe Streets, Livable Streets

Transportation safety is a highly contentious issue in the design of cities and communities. While urban designers, architects, and planners often encourage the use of aesthetic streetscape treatments to enhance the liability of urban streets, conventional transportation safety practice regards roadside features such as street trees as fixed-object hazards and strongly discourages their use. In this study, I examine the subject of livable streetscape treatments and find compelling evidence that suggests they may actually enhance the safety of urban roadways. Concerns about their safety effects do not appear to be founded on empirical observations of crash performance, but instead on a design philosophy that discounts the important relationship between driver behavior and safety. This study traces the origin and evolution of this philosophy, and proposes an alternative that may better account for the dynamic relationships between road design, driver behavior, and transportation safety. It has taken many decades for roadway designers to begin to recognize that how road and road environments are designed affects safety, and to identify what particular features enhance or detract from safety in a given environment. This process is still evolving. Historically, there has been a tendency for those funding research to focus on rural or high-speed environments, and on pavements and structures. One outcome of the resulting underemphasis on safety and urban design concerns, as author Eric Dumbaugh identified in this article, is the problem with the published research about urban roadside design in the U.S.: it is limited in both scope and quantity. With these limitations, it is understandable that city street designers extrapolate from principles learned in a rural highway environment. They may not be standing on the firmest ground when they do this, but they judge that it is the best ground they have.

Livable Streets Revisited

This article evaluates the livability of residential boulevards, a type of street that has center lanes for through traffic and local access lanes separated from the center lanes by landscaped “malls.” Three boulevards were studied. All three carried high traffic volumes but were rated as more livable than neighboring, conventionally designed streets with medium traffic volumes. The study concludes that boulevards with a side median design successfully mitigate the adverse impacts of heavy traffic. The research methods used for this study were based on the well-known 1969 “Livable Streets” project by Donald Appleyard and Mark Lintell. Like the original study, it compared the responses of residents on streets with high, medium, and low traffic volumes and measured the effects of traffic on social interaction, perceptions of home territory, and the comfort of people's daily lives. The new study shows trends similar to those found in the original one and adds information about boulevards, which were not previously examined.

Livable Streets for Pedestrians in Nairobi: The Challenge of Road Traffic Accidents

This paper examines the trend in pedestrian road traffic accident fatalities and injuries in Nairobi from 1977 to 1994. Pedestrians constituted the largest victim group of fatalities and injuries. This state of affairs is largely due to the neglect of pedestrian needs in transport planning and practice in Nairobi. The key to improving pedestrian safety in Nairobi lies in a re-orientation of transport policy from motor-vehicle fixation to pedestrian promotion. There is an urgent need for serious thought to be given to a meaningful pedestrianisation process in Nairobi.

Auto traffic noise, air traffic noise, and the environmental quality of city streets: Test of a model

In Jan. 1991 the Greater Cincinati Airport opened a new runway whose traffic flies directly over heavily populated residential areas which had little prior exposure to aircraft noise. Our evaluative study design replicated with modifications the classic and influential Appleyard and Lintell [(1969); Appleyard, LivableStreets (1981)] studies of the effects of auto traffic on residential life. As did Appleyard and Lintell, three streets were chosen called High, Medium, and Low, based on observed noise levels (and dBA measures of flights; many were found to be in the 90 to 100 dBA range), and conducted, using their questionnaire, 36 structured in-depth interviews with 12 randomly sampled households on each street, concerning five components of ‘‘perceived livability’’: traffic hazard; psychological stress, social interaction with neighbors; privacy and home territory; and environmental awareness. Residents gave numerical ratings of these components, as well as giving detailed verbal descriptions. Using ANOVAS and Tukey tests of the ratings, and structured analyses of the verbal descriptions, we found perceived livability was lowest on the High noise street and highest on the Low noise street, implying that the Appleyard and Lintell model for assessing residential livability effects of auto traffic noise is also useful for air traffic noise.

Traffic integration and environmental traffic management in Denmark

This paper assesses Danish experience in attempting to integrate traffic with its surroundings in existing areas. Rest and play areas, quiet roads with a 30 km/h speed limit, and major road schemes on urban shopping streets and through villages are all discussed; so too are policies seeking to create safe routes to school, the problems arising from the introduction of speed reduction measures on bus routes, and the merits of area-wide as opposed to incremental approaches. Evaluations indicate that speed reductions to a maximum of 30 km/h are achievable on local roads, and that the quiet street approach represents a cost-effective and popular means of achieving environmental improvements and safer, more livable streets for residents. It is recommended as an appropriate model for Britain to follow. Incremental implementation risks being sub-optimal in design terms but has distinct advantages in minimizing conflicts and enabling rapid implementation. Evaluations of shopping street and village schemes are incomplete but speed reductions and environmental gains have undoubtedly been achieved. (Author/TRRL)

Book Reviews

Book Review in this ArticleE. Owen Smith, ed., Trade Unions in the Developed EconomiesNorman Walzer and Glenn W. Fisher, Cities, Suburbs, and Property TuxesStephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in AmericaW. Patrick Beaton, John H. Weyland, and Nancy C. Newman, Energy Forecasting for Planners: Transportation ModelsRobert Emil Botsch, We Shall Not Overcome: Populism and Southern Blue‐Collar WorkersRichard C. Carlson, Willis W. Harman, and Peter Schwartz, Energy Futures, Human Values, and Lifestyles: A New Look at the Energy CrisisK. J. Button, A. D. Pearman, and A. S. Fowkes, Car Ownership Modelling and ForecastingFred C. Shapiro, Radwaste: A Reporter's Investigation of a Growing Nuclear MenaceDonald Appleyard, Livable Streets

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Appleyard, Donald (with M. Sue Gerson and Mark Lintell), "Livable Streets" (Book Review)

Appleyard, Donald (with M. Sue Gerson and Mark Lintell), "Livable Streets" (Book Review)

Livable Streets: Protected Neighborhoods?

Streets have become dangerous, unlivable environments, yet most people live on them. Streets need to be redefined as sanctuaries; as livable places; as communities; as resident territory; as places for play, greenery, and local history. Neighborhoods should be protected, though not to the point of being exclusionary. The neighborhood unit, the environmental area and the Woonerf are examined as models for the protected neighborhood. The criteria for a protected neighborhood depend on acceptable speeds, volumes, noise levels, reduction of accidents, and rights-of-way for pedestrians.