In recent years, people’s concern for walking as the relationship between walking and health is emphasized. Since the promotion of walking activity through the improvement of pedestrian environment does not only have effect of suppressing the demand...
In recent years, people’s concern for walking as the relationship between walking and health is emphasized. Since the promotion of walking activity through the improvement of pedestrian environment does not only have effect of suppressing the demand of automobiles, but also plays an important role in changing the entire urban circumstance, it’s considered that the policy should be actively pushed ahead in order to create sustainable and healthy city.
This study, therefore, suggests the evaluation index for walkability for the promotion of walking activity through internal and external advanced research, attempting to grasp the pedestrian environment adequate for residents to walk through conducting the direct survey. The purpose of the study is to derive the evaluation index for walking environment that can polysynthetically assess it by quantitatively analyzing the walkability for each type of residential area; with the findings of the analysis using the above, the current study will give the direction of development of walkable community so that citizens can have the right walk circumstance in proper streets. It is thought that the government’s walking-related projects for the vitalization of walking actively progressed should have more effective results and may create pleasant walking environment for residents. Furthermore, it has significance in establishing the walkable model for residence in Korea.
The main contents this study carried out, therefore, were classified, revised and complemented on the basis of the advanced research to derive elements for the walking environment, drawing the evaluation index of walkability for each type of residence by analyzing the pedestrian environment.
The derivation of the elements of the pedestrian environment for activating walking was conducted by the internal and external advanced studies. The 89 elements collected by the preceding research were divided into five characteristics: traffic safety, various destinations, safety from crimes, accessibility and amenity. In order to pattern the residential areas in Busan for classification, the study selected the sites of study of the first-class general residential area (Gijang-gun), the second-class general residential area (Haeundae-gu), and the third-class residential area (Busanjin-gu). The research consisted of questionnaire and field study, and in order to extract significant elements among many evaluation indexes, the study used a stepwise regression analysis to derive walkability evaluation index from the analysis without classifying characteristics and the one with classifying them.
It can be identified that considering all the factors affecting the pedestrian environment suggested previously is the most ideal way to improve the walking environment. However, if en bloc improvements are not possible due to the problems including the limit of finances and spatial restrictions, the stepwise improvement of the pedestrian environment should be adopted; thereby this paper divided the walkability evaluation index according to the types of residential areas.
First of all, the evaluation index for the first-class general residential area was arranged in the order of condition of bad smell, overall attractiveness of the plan, the distance from bus stops, the bench at the bus stops, refreshing walking distance, task and service facilities, bad smell of drains and arrangement of manholes. The elements for the pedestrian environment of second-class general residential area were ultimately arranged in the order of overall attractiveness of the plan, streetlights, whether there were one-way and two-way streets, pleasant streets in the place without paved road, refreshing walking distance, the distance to bus stops, the pavement of the surface of the sidewalk, public convenient facilities, buffering green belt between sidewalks and roads. The walking environmental factors for the third-class general residential area was finally arranged in the order of pleasant cross of the road, use of public place without refusal, the amount of walk passes, condition of bad smell, pleasant walking distance, overall lineal distance, the buildings with security grille, and the arrangement of wires of telephone poles.
In the result of the analysis, the elements such as paved road, which can be basic facility for pedestrian, bad smell and manhole arrangements had so much influence; it can be inferred that the need of improvement of fundamental infrastructures for walking is still high. Especially when looking at regions, such tendency was greater in the first-class general residential area. Since the first-class general residential area in Gijang-gun largely consisted of regions in which Limited Development District (Green Belt) was lifted recently, it has poor basic infrastructures for walking compared to the second and third-class general residential areas. Contrastingly, the third-class general residential area of Busanjin-gu has more pleasant walking environment because of the completion of many community developments. Therefore, it can be concluded that instead of improving basic infrastructures for walking, the betterment of psychological and social pedestrian environment is needed. In addition, although the basic infrastructures for walking of the second-class general residential area of Haeundae-gu cannot be seen as inferior to that of the first-class general residential area, it may be said that complex improvement for walking environment of both basic infrastructures and psychological and social walking environment facilities is required.
The evaluation index according to the types of residential area suggested in this study is expected to be used when designing and establishing the plan for urban walking environment to promote vitalization of walking. It’s also anticipated that more objective measuring methods should be improved for each walking environmental factor, in order to make the evaluation index which is accurate and can be accessed and used by anyone in the future.