Pedestrians and cyclists make up a disproportionate number of traffic deaths in America, while federal funds to make walking and biking safer are disproportionately low. Image: Alliance for Biking & Walking

The Alliance looks at all 50 states, and 51 of the nation’s largest cities, in its biannual benchmarking process. The report assesses bike-ped travel, traffic safety, and federal funding, as well as planning and policy initiatives like statewide bicycle plans and pedestrian advisory committees.

The bottom line is a mix of encouraging trends tempered by enduring inequalities. The share of all trips made by walking or biking has actually increased, from 9.6 percent to 12 percent, since the publication of the previous benchmarks in 2010. Even the share of federal funding for bike and pedestrian projects has inched upwards by half a percentage point. However, that federal funding share is still disproportionately low (only 1.6 percent), and equates to just $2.17 per capita nationwide.

Furthermore, the bike-ped share of traffic fatalities has actually increased, from 13 percent to 14, over the past two years. This echoes the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data recently published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA announced last month that fatality rates are decreasing among motor vehicle occupants, and even among cyclists, but increased for pedestrians in 2010. Whatever new safety benefits are currently benefiting people behind the wheel, they haven’t extended to pedestrians.

The Alliance’s report arrives at a time when Congress is still in the midst of crafting a new surface transportation law. SAFETEA-LU, the current law that’s already been extended eight times, is set to expire again in 69 days, and will either have to be replaced or re-extended by then. (Interestingly enough, the 2010 report was published shortly after SAFETEA-LU expired for the first time.) Programs like Transportation Enhancements, the source for many of those precious few bike-ped dollars, have already proven to be a sticking point in negotiations.

While Congress draws out the reauthorization process, the Alliance report offers insights into what states and cities have accomplished in the meantime. The state leaders in bike-ped policy are unchanged from 2010, with one exception: Virginia has been supplanted by its neighbor to the north, Maryland, as the state with the lowest per-capita bike-ped funding. You can see more leaders and laggards after the jump, or read the full report here.

• Share of commuters who walk: Alaska at No. 1, Alabama at No. 50
• Share of commuters who bike: Oregon at No. 1, Alabama at No. 50
• Bike-ped fatality rates: Vermont has the lowest, Florida has the highest
• Per-capita bike-ped funding: Maryland has the lowest, Alaska has the highest

In terms of cities, the report assessed the nation’s 50 largest cities, plus New Orleans (which is not the 51st largest city, but was included for the sake of continuity with the 2007 and 2010 benchmarking reports).

• Share of commuters who walk: Boston at No. 1, Fort Worth at No. 51
• Share of commuters who bike: Portland, OR at No. 1, San Antonio at No. 51
• Bike-ped fatality rates: Boston has the lowest, Forth Worth has the highest
• Per-capita bike-ped funding: New York City has the lowest, Washington, DC has the highest

Kids celebrate Walk to School Day in Harlem in October. Photo: NYC DOT/Flickr

DOT today launched a new initiative to help students stay physically active by walking to school.

Schools that register for the Walk Ways program will be offered lesson plans on educating students about the benefits of walking and assistance from DOT in developing walk-to-school routes.

Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was joined by Ed Koch at P.S. 64 in the East Village for today’s kick-off event, where the former mayor read from “Eddie Shapes Up,” a children’s book written by Koch and his sister Pat Koch Thaler about “an overweight student’s path to getting healthy by eating better and exercising more.”

In a press release, Koch singled out recent DOT street safety enhancements for praise.

“The most marvelous sight in New York City is to see youngsters, adolescents and adults cycling on the many bicycle paths we now have which separate bikers from vehicular traffic,” said Koch, who installed (and removed) the city’s first protected bike lanes in the early 1980s. “It is glorious to watch, and I wish I were young again to participate.”

School registration info and campaign materials are available on the DOT web site.

Is this the new image of walkable urbanism? Photo: WekeRoad

Leinberger noted that Hollywood does more consumer research than anyone else, and it portrays what audiences aspire to. So, we can see in the difference between TV shows of past decades and current shows the evolution of tastes in the U.S. Where we had I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, and The Brady Bunch, all set in the suburbs, we now have Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City – all set in cities.

Indeed, Leinberger often talks about the increased demand for urbanism, especially among young people, but he also noted the downsizing trend as baby boomers move out of big houses to smaller spaces in more walkable, urban neighborhoods. And he credited the trend of people having fewer children with the expansion of the demand for walkable urbanism: Only 25 percent of households have children now, as opposed to 50 percent in the 1950s. Singles and couples without children are the “target market” for walkable urbanism, he said, and that constituency is only growing.

At the same time, Manuel Pastor argued that the main catalysts of walkable urbanism in the future are going to be the people with the highest fertility rate in the nation, having the most children: Latinos. (Latina women have an average of three children each, while each white woman has an average of 2.1.)

Pastor said the age gap between whites and “non-white Hispanics” (Latinos) – the median age among whites is 41; among Latinos it’s 27 – is causing significant tension. The state with the largest age gap between whites and Latinos is Arizona, which notoriously passed (what was then) the country’s most repressive anti-immigrant law last year. The gap is also responsible for low levels of per capita spending on education, since older whites “don’t see themselves” in the younger generation using the schools. And good urban schools are key to keeping families in cities as their children grow up.

Even with their big families and many children, Latinos prefer to live in cities, Pastor said. New arrivals, especially, disproportionately use transit. The walkable urbanism in immigrant neighborhoods is characterized by “taquerías, not cappuccino bars,” Pastor said. Latinos simply don’t follow the same trends as white Americans when it comes to suburban flight when kids come into the picture.

The Old Fulton Street redesign imposes some order, reclaims space for pedestrians, and fortifies bike routes. Image: NYC DOT

Last week NYC DOT presented plans for expanded pedestrian areas and upgraded bike markings on Old Fulton Street, which serves as the primary gateway to the recently opened Pier 1 of Brooklyn Bridge Park. The plan [PDF] calls for a new pedestrian plaza, treatments to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists crossing highway exits, and a concrete median intended to prevent illegal parking and bus drop-offs in the middle of Old Fulton Street. The transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 2 approved the plan in a 7-2 vote with one abstention.

Old Fulton Street is seeing a lot more use since the opening of Pier 1 last year, and it should only attract more people as the park adds new sections. The street also leads right to Fulton Ferry Landing, one of the stops along the route of the city’s new East River ferry service. But Old Fulton Street currently meets the park and the ferry landing with big open expanses of asphalt, leading to something of a free-for-all among drivers and buses making drop-offs at the park.

The redesign aims to impose some order, give priority to pedestrians, and prevent buses from unloading passengers and making U-turns at the end of Old Fulton Street. Tour buses will be encouraged to load and unload on Furman Street, out of the way of the main walking and biking routes to the park.

The full project includes a number of features to make walking and biking to the park safer and more convenient:

• Sidewalk extensions, planted medians, and crosswalks where Old Fulton Street crosses entrances and exits to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway
• Additions to the bike network: Sharrows on Old Fulton will be upgraded to striped lanes, and a short stretch of Front Street will get new markings, enhancing the connection between DUMBO and the route of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway
• A neckdown where York Street empties onto Front Street will narrow the crossing distance from 71 feet to 25 feet

As part of the reconfiguration, the B25 will be re-routed to avoid performing a U-turn on Old Fulton on weekends, most likely by following the same circuit it takes on weekdays. More details from the DOT presentation after the jump.

Currently the open asphalt at the end of Old Fulton Street leads to a lot of illegal parking, U-turns, and drop-offs in the middle of the street. Image: NYC DOT

New plaza space on Old Fulton Street should give people some breathing room on the sidewalk even when the line at Grimaldi's is at its longest. It's hard to tell from the rendering, but the project also adds striped bike lanes to both sides of this block. Image: NYC DOT

Further inland, the project would add new sidewalk space and medians where Old Fulton meets traffic heading to and from the BQE. Image: NYC DOT

There is more to walking than walking. Photos by Jan Gehl.

Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a three-part series this week by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts are from his book, “Cities for People,” published by Island Press. Donate to Streetsblog and Streetfilms and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press.

It is a big day when at about one year of age a child takes that first step. The child’s eye level moves from the vantage point of the crawler (about 1 foot) above the floor to about 2.6 feet.

The little walker can see much more and move faster. From now on everything in the child’s world — field of vision, perspective, overview, pace, flexibility and opportunities — will move on a higher, faster plane. All of life’s important moments will hereafter be experienced on foot at standing and walking pace.

While walking is basically a linear movement that brings the walker from place to place, it is also much more. Walkers can effortlessly stop underway to change direction, maneuver, speed up or slow down or switch to a different type of activity such as standing, sitting, running, dancing, climbing or lying down.

A city walk illustrates its many variations: the quick goal-oriented walk from A to B, the slow stroll to enjoy city life or a sunset, children’s zig-zagging, and senior citizens’ determined walk to get fresh air and exercise or do an errand. Regardless of the purpose, a walk in city space is a “forum” for the social activities that take place along the way as an integral part of pedestrian activities. Heads move from side to side, walkers turn or stop to see everything, or to greet or talk with others. Walking is a form of transport, but it is also a potential beginning or an occasion for many other activities.

Many factors impact on walking speed: the quality of the route, the surface, the strength of the crowd, and the age and mobility of the walker. The design of the space also plays a role. Pedestrians usually walk faster on streets that invite linear movement, while their pace falls while traversing squares. It is almost like water, which flows rapidly along riverbeds but moves more slowly in lakes. Weather is another factor. People move more quickly when it is raining, windy or cold.

Life takes place on foot in Amman, Jordan.

On Copenhagen’s main walking street, Strøget, pedestrian traffic on cold winter days is 35 percent faster than on good summer days. In summer there are many pedestrians in the city promenading and enjoying the process, while pedestrian traffic in winter is considerably more targeted. When it’s cold, people walk for warmth. On average the walking speed in summer is 14.2 min per km/23 min per mile, corresponding to 4.2 km per hour/2.6 mph. Corresponding winter walking speeds are 10.3 min per km/16.6 min per mile corresponding to 5.8 km per hour/3.6 mph.

A walk of 450 m/0.3 mile takes about five minutes, while a walk of 900 m/0.6 mile will take about 10 minutes at 5.4 km per hour/3.4 mph. Naturally, these time estimates are only valid if the area is uncrowded and people can walk without obstacles or breaks.

An acceptable walking distance is a relatively fluid concept. Some people happily walk many kilometers/miles, while even short walks are difficult for old people, the disabled and children. Walks of 500 m/0.3 miles are mentioned frequently as a distance most people are willing to walk. However, an acceptable distance also depends on the quality of the route. If the pavement is good quality and the route interesting, a considerably longer walk is often acceptable. Conversely, the desire to walk drops drastically if the route is uninteresting and thus feels tiring. In that case a walk of only 200 or 300 m/0.12 to 0.18 mile will seem like a long way, even if it only takes less than five minutes on foot.

A distance of 500 m/0.3 mile as an approximate goal for acceptable walks is supported by the size of city centers. By far the majority of city centers are about one km²/0.39 sq mile, corresponding to an area of 1×1 km/0.6 x 0.6 mile. This means that a walk of a kilometer or less will bring the pedestrians around to most of the functions in the city.

Huge cities like London and New York have corresponding patterns, as they are divided into numerous centers and districts. The magic one km² center size can certainly be found in these cities. The acceptable walking distance does not change just because the city is larger.

This street sign in Poland discreetly recommends that people keep their arms close to their sides

An important prerequisite for a comfortable and pleasurable walk is room to walk relatively freely and unhampered, without having to weave in and out and without being pushed and shoved by others. Children, older people and people with disabilities have special requirements for being able to walk unhindered. People pushing strollers, shopping carts and walkers also need plenty of room for walking. Groups of young people are typically the most tolerant about moving about in crowds.

If we look at photographs from 100 years ago, pedestrians are often shown moving freely and unimpeded in every direction. Cities were still primarily the province of pedestrians, with horse-drawn carriages and trolleys and a few cars merely as visitors.

In step with the car invasion, pedestrians were first pushed up along building façades and then increasingly squeezed together on shrinking sidewalks. Crowded sidewalks are unacceptable and a problem worldwide.

Studies of urban streets in London, New York and Sydney illustrate the problems of narrow sidewalks for large crowds of pedestrians on streets where most of the area is designed for car traffic, despite the fact that the number of drivers is far lower than the number of pedestrians crowded together on the sidewalk.

The pedestrian traffic on sidewalks moves in columns that are pushed and shoved, and everyone must move at the speed dictated by the pedestrian stream. The elderly, the disabled and children cannot possibly keep up.

Various limits are suggested for what is considered an acceptable amount of space for pedestrian traffic, depending on context. Based on studies in New York, William H. Whyte proposes up to 23 pedestrians per minute per meter/three feet on the sidewalk. Studies in Copenhagen propose 13 pedestrians per minute per meter/three feet of sidewalk, if the limit for unacceptable crowding on sidewalks is to be avoided.

If walking is to be comfortable, including acceptable distance and pace, there has to be room to walk without too many interruptions and obstacles. These qualities are often offered in dedicated pedestrian areas, but seldom on sidewalks on city streets. On the contrary, it is impressive to note how many obstacles and difficulties have been incorporated into pedestrian landscapes over the years. Traffic signs, lampposts, parking meters and all types of technical control units are systematically placed on sidewalks in order “not to be in the way.” Cars parked on or partially on sidewalks, thoughtlessly parked bicycles and undisciplined street displays complete the picture of a pedestrian landscape where pedestrians have to maneuver like skiers down a slalom course in order to move along sidewalks that are too narrow in the first place.

The high priority given to car traffic and parking have created unreasonable conditions for pedestrians all over the world.

Enough space for walking is important to all groups of pedestrians, but especially children, the elderly and the disabled.

Walking in urban landscapes can present many other petty annoyances and difficulties. One is pedestrian fences intended to keep walkers confined to crowded sidewalks. Barriers erected on pavements at intersections to keep pedestrians away from corners extend some way down the street, causing more detours and annoyance

Interruptions in sidewalks to provide cars with uncomplicated access to garages, driveways, delivery gates and gas stations have gradually become a natural part of the street scene in car-dominated cities.

On Regent Street in London, 45 – 50,000 pedestrians daily force their way through 13 unnecessary sidewalk interruptions, and in Adelaide, South Australia, streets in the city center offer pedestrians no fewer than 330 unnecessary sidewalk interruptions.

In addition to these meaningless interruptions that force pedestrians, wheelchairs and strollers up and down curbs at garages and gates, there are many unmotivated interruptions where small streets run into larger ones. In almost all of the situations mentioned, the sidewalk should be led unbroken through entrance ways and side streets as part of a general policy of inviting rather than discouraging pedestrian traffic.

The combination of inadequate space and annoyances large and small is supplemented by endless waiting time at stoplights at city intersections. Pedestrians are typically given low priority and thus face long waits at red lights followed by short green-light periods. The green light often only lasts seconds before being replaced by blinking red signals meaning that it is now time to run to avoid delaying the traffic.

When walking resembles an obstacle course (Sydney, Australia).

In many places, particularly in the UK and other areas inspired by British traffic planning, crossing the streets is not a basic human right but rather something pedestrians have to apply for by pushing a button at intersections. Sometimes they even have to press three times to make it through the maze at complicated intersections. In these cities any thought of being able to walk 450 meters/1,476 feet in five minutes is a fantasy.

The center of Sydney has many pedestrians, as well as many intersections, many stoplights, many pushbuttons and long periods of waiting. Here pedestrians can easily spend half of the total walking time waiting for the “walk” signal. Waits of up to 15 percent, 25 percent or even 50 percent of a walk are common on many traffic streets in cities around the world.

By comparison, the waiting time on a one-kilometer/0.6 mile walk on Copenhagen’s main walking street, Strøget, is only 0 – 3 percent of walking time. A goal-oriented walk through the city via Strøget can be done in 12 minutes, but many people spend far more time because the walk is so interesting.

Another special walking phenomenon has been noted on sidewalks where crossroads streets and light signals cause pedestrians to stop frequently. Pedestrians move in clumps and therefore always in crowds, even at times when there isn’t much pedestrian traffic.

Every time the pedestrian stream meets a red light the pedestrians stop, and the slightly slower walkers have time to catch up with the main field, after which everyone is once again amalgamated into a clump. When the light turns green, the clump moves forward again, but disperses slightly before the next stoplight, where everyone is gathered once again. Between clumps, the sidewalk is typically almost devoid of people.

Urbanites all over the world are highly energy conscious when it comes to saving their own energy when walking. They cross streets where it is most natural for them, avoid detours, obstacles, stairs and steps, and prefer direct lines of walking everywhere. When pedestrians can see the object of a walk, they rechart a course along the shortest line. Their pleasure from direct walks can be seen clearly in city squares, by their footsteps after a snowfall and on countless tramped paths worn across lawns and landscapes the world over.

Walking directly to your destination is a natural response, often in an unfortunate and almost comic conflict with architects’ rulers and the resulting right-angled urban projects. These right-angled design projects look neat and proper until the corners, lawns and squares are trodden on in every direction.

It is often easy to foresee the preferred lines of walking and to incorporate them to a reasonable extent in the design of complexes and landscaping. Preferred lines often inspire fascinating patterns and shapes.

Many cities have consistently allowed entrances, garages and side streets to interrupt sidewalks. However, cars should yield on side streets, allowing pedestrians and bicycles to continue on without interruption (Regent Street, London).

A standard traffic solution in Copenhagen.

About 500 meters/1,640 feet is a distance most pedestrians find acceptable. This is not an absolute truth, however, because what is acceptable will always be a combination of distance and the quality of the route. If comfort is low, the walk will be short, while if the route is interesting, rich in experience and comfortable, pedestrians forget the distance and enjoy experiences as they happen.

The “tiring length perspective” describes the situation in which the pedestrian can see the whole route at a glance before even starting out. The road is straight and seemingly endless, with no promise of interesting experiences along the way. The prospect is tiring before the walk is even begun.

In contrast, the route can be divided into manageable segments, where people can walk from square to square, which naturally breaks up the walk, or along a street that winds enticingly, inviting the pedestrian from one section to the next. A winding street does not have to twist much to prevent the walker seeing very far down the street, but is constantly walking towards corners and twists, where new vistas open.

Copenhagen’s main pedestrian street, Strøget, is a good kilometer/0.6 mile long and runs almost directly from one end of the city center to the other. Countless twists and turns along the way keep the spaces closed up and interesting. Four squares further divide the route and make walking the length of the city center psychologically manageable. We walk from square to square, and the many twists and turns make the trip interesting and unpredictable. Under these circumstances a walk of one kilometer/0.6 mile or more is no problem.

Street patterns, the design of space, rich detail and intense experiences influence the quality of pedestrian routes and pleasure in walking. The city’s “edges” also play a role. We have plenty of time to look as we walk, and the quality of the ground floor façades we pass close by at eye level, is particularly important to the quality of the tour. The section on lively cities proscribes “small units and many doors” for streets frequented by pedestrians.

The principle of narrow units and many experiences is also important along pedestrian routes that don’t have shops and stalls. Front doors, building details, landscaping and greenery in front of housing, offices and institutions can make a valuable contribution to interesting experiences on walks. If buildings also have a primarily vertical façade expression, walks seem shorter and more manageable, whereas buildings with powerful horizontal lines underscore and reinforce distance.

Walking up stairs is harder than walking on a flat surface, and we avoid stairs whenever we can. And for many groups in society stairs are a direct barrier.

Stairs and steps are another area that clearly illustrate pedestrians’ major interest in saving energy. Horizontal movements are no big problem. If the telephone rings in a neighboring room, we just get up and answer it. However, if the telephone rings on another floor, we shout to ask if someone else will answer it. Going up and down stairs and steps requires new movements, more muscle power, and walking rhythm has to be changed to climbing rhythm. These factors make it more difficult to go up and down than to move on the same plane, or alternatively, to be transported mechanically up and down. At metro stations, in airports and department stores, people stand in line to take the escalator, while staircases next to them are almost empty. Shopping malls and department stores built in several stories rely on escalators and elevators to move people from floor to floor. If the transport breaks down, people go home!

It is interesting to study daily life in multistory housing. In almost all cases, the bulk of activity takes place on the ground floor. Once you have entered the living room, you naturally tend to wait before going upstairs again. Children bring their toys down into the living room, where they play with them all day until their parents take them back up again at bedtime. The lower floors are almost always more well-worn than the upper ones. Second-or third-floor rooms are almost always used less than those on the ground floor, and roof terraces are used far less than outside space with direct access without climbing stairs. The heaps gathered on the bottom steps waiting to be taken upstairs speak volumes about the physical and psychological problems related to internal stairs.

Stairs and steps definitely represent a genuine physical and psychological challenge for pedestrians. If possible pedestrians certainly will avoid them. However, like street length, staircases can also be disguised to make the trip seem more doable. If at the foot of a five-story building we could see the entire staircase with its seemingly endless steps, most people would find it impossible to crawl to the top, unless their lives were at stake. In situations like these it is interesting to see the wide- spread use of elementary “staircase psychology.”

If we can see the staircase all the way to the top, we find the climb all the more tiring.

Staircases are angled to wind from landing to landing, dividing the climb into shorter segments. It is like moving from “square” to “square,” and the climber never gets the chance to see the entire course of stairs in its exhausting length. That way we are enticed into the building, even if we have to climb. Even when the enticement is utterly convincing, it is the elevator that is the most used if there is one. Naturally staircase psychology is also used successfully in public space, where examples like the Spanish Steps in Rome demonstrate that a climb can be beautifully combined with interesting experiences.

With regard to visions of lovely urban space that invite people to walk as much as possible, the conclusion is actually very simple. Stairs and steps are genuine obstacles — in principle to be avoided wherever possible. When a necessity in the pedestrian landscape, stairs and steps must have comfortable dimensions, and visual interest and staircase psychology must be used purposefully. Ramps or elevators are estab- lished for rolling pedestrian traffic and people with reduced mobility as a matter of course.

If we consider situations where pedestrians are free to choose between ramps and stairs, we see that they clearly prefer ramps. Walking rhythm can be maintained if height differences are evened out by allowing the terrain to rise and fall slightly or by using ramps. Children, the disabled and rolling pedestrian traffic can also complete their walk without interruptions. Ramps are not always as full of character as stairs and steps, but they are generally preferred.

Marathon preparation in Venice means ramps instead of stairs.

Shoppers have a choice of ramps, stairs and escalators at this shopping center in Beijing, China.

In the early years of the automobile invasion, from the 1950s to the 1970s, road engineering focused uncritically on increasing capacity on the roads and preventing accidents to pedestrians. The solution to both problems was often to segregate traffic and lead pedestrians under or over roads by means of pedestrian underpasses and bridges. This meant subjecting pedestrians to stairs on either side of the crossing. Planners quickly learned that pedestrian underpasses and bridges were exceedingly unpopular and only worked if tall fences were also built along the roads, so that pedestrians literally had no other way out. This still did not solve the problem of strollers, wheelchairs and bicycles, however.

Pedestrian underpass systems had the additional disadvantage of being dark and dank, and people generally feel insecure if they are unable to see very far ahead. In short, the often expensive pedestrian underpasses and bridges were in conflict with the basic premises for good pedestrian landscapes. Seen in the perspective of current visions of inviting people to walk and bicycle more in cities, clearly pedestrian underpasses and bridges can only be solutions in those special cases where major highways must be crossed. Solutions must be found for all other roads and streets that allow pedestrians and bicycles to stay on street level and cross with dignity. An integrated traffic model will also make city streets friendlier and safer as cars will have to move more slowly and stop more often.

Today the world is full of abandoned pedestrian underpasses and bridges. They belong to a certain time and a certain philosophy.

in Japanese cities the overpass- es are intertwined into larger systems. Level of difficulty: great. Chances of interesting promenades: small (Sendai, Japan).

Naturally pavements play an important role in pedestrian comfort. In future the quality of pavement and surfaces will be particularly important in a world with more senior citizens and pedestrians with reduced mobility, more rolling pedestrian traffic and more people wanting to take children to the city. It is desirable for surfaces to be even and non slip. Traditional cobblestones and broken natural slate stones are full of visual character, but seldom live up to modern requirements. In places where the character of the old cobblestones has to be maintained, bands of flat granite have to be added to enable wheelchairs, strollers, small children, senior citizens and women in high heels to move in relative comfort. This type of pavement, combining old with new, is used in many cities and can be designed as elegant floors for public space, while paying history its due.

As far as possible, a good city for walking must function all year round, day and night. In winter it is important that snow and ice are cleared, and, to use the Copenhagen model as an example, pedestrian areas and bicycle paths should be cleared before roads for car traffic. On cold days when pavements are icy, pedestrians have a far greater risk of injury than do car drivers, who typically drive more slowly and carefully. In all parts of the world and in all seasons, ensuring dry nonslip surfaces for pedes- trians is an important part of whole-hearted invitations to walk in cities.

Lighting is crucial once night falls. Good lighting on people and faces and reasonable lighting for façades, niches and corners is needed along the most important pedestrian routes to strengthen the real and the ex- perienced sense of security, and sufficient light is needed on pavements, surfaces and steps so that pedestrians can maneuver safely.

Please walk — around the clock all year round.

Sibelius Park, a housing complex in Copenhagen, has cooperated with the Danish Crime Prevention Council to carefully define private, semiprivate, semipublic and public territories in the complex. Subsequent studies have shown that there is less crime and greater security than in other similar developments. Photos: Jan Gehl

Editor’s note: Streetsblog is thrilled to launch a three-part series today by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts from his book, “Cities for People,” published by Island Press. Donate to Streetsblog and Streetfilms and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press. Visit the Island Press website to find many more great titles by the nation’s leading publisher of books on environmental issues.

Feeling safe is crucial if we hope to have people embrace city space. In general, life and people themselves make the city more inviting and safe in terms of both experienced and perceived security.

In this section we deal with the safe city issue with the goal of ensuring good cities by inviting walking, biking and staying. Our discussion will focus on two important sectors where targeted efforts can satisfy the requirement for safety in city space: traffic safety and crime prevention.

Throughout the entire period of car encroachment, cities have tried to remove bicycle traffic from their streets. The risk of accident to pedestrians and bicyclists has been great throughout the rise in car traffic, and the fear of accident even greater.

Many European countries and North America experienced the car invasion early on and have watched city quality deteriorate year by year. There have been numerous counter reactions and an incipient development of new traffic planning principles in response. In other countries whose economies have developed more slowly and modestly, cars have only begun to invade cities more recently. In every case the result is a dramatic worsening of conditions for pedestrians and bicycle traffic.

The concept of shared or complete streets suggests equality between traffic groups, which is a utopian ideal. Integrating various types of traffic is not satisfactory until pedestrians are given a clear priority (shared space in Haren, the Netherlands, and a pedestrian priority street in Copenhagen, Denmark).

In cities where the car invasion began early and has lasted decades, we can now see a strong reaction against the myopic focus on cars that has dealt such harsh blows to city life and bicycle traffic.

In many countries, especially in Europe, traffic planning in the 21st century has changed dramatically compared to the traffic planning of twenty or thirty years ago. The importance of promoting pedestrian and bicycle traffic has gradually been acknowledged while better understanding of the nature and causes of traffic accidents has produced a considerably wider variety of planning tools.

When the first pedestrian streets were introduced in Europe in the 1960s, there were really only two street models: those for vehicular traffic and those for pedestrians. Numerous types of streets and traffic solutions have since been developed so that today’s traffic planners have quite a wide range of streets to choose from: vehicular traffic-only streets, boulevards, 30 km/h (19 mph) traffic, pedestrian priority, 15 km/h (9 mph) areas, pedestrian-streetcar, pedestrian-bicycle and pedestrian only. The experience gained in the intervening years has also made it possible to reduce the number of traffic accidents and make walking or biking considerably safer and more comfortable.

In choosing street types and traffic solutions, it is important to start with the human dimension. People must be able to move comfortably and safely in cities on foot or by bicycle, and when traffic solutions are adopted special consideration must be given to children, the young, the elderly and people with disabilities. Quality for people and pedestrian safety must be key concerns.

A number of recent urban planning ideologies deriving from accident statistics contend that the risk of accident can be reduced by physically mixing types of traffic in the same street under the heading of “shared space.”

The underlying idea of these so-called shared streets is that they will give trucks, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians of all ages the opportunity to travel quietly, side by side and with good eye contact. Serious accidents will rarely occur under such conditions, or so it is thought, because pedestrians and bicyclists need to be extra vigilant at all times.

Obviously, if people are sufficiently frightened and keep a close watch on traffic, nothing untoward will happen. However, the price is high in terms of dignity and quality. Children cannot be allowed free rein, and older people and others with reduced mobility may be forced to drop walking altogether. In any discussion about people and traffic safety the risk of accident must be weighed against quality for pedestrians and bicyclists. Much of modern traffic planning continues to pay far too little attention to the quality of city life.

Mixing types of traffic is certainly possible, but not on the equal terms implied by the shared street concept. As the British “home zones,” Dutch “woonerfs,” and Scandinavian “sivegader” have demonstrated for years, pedestrians can thrive with other forms of traffic as long as it is crystal clear that all movement is based on the premises of pedestrians. Mixed–traffic solutions must prioritize either pedestrians or provide appropriate traffic segregation.

Copenhagen-style bicycle lanes take advantage of parked cars to protect bicyclists.

The principle of having bicyclists bike outside a lane of parked cars does not solve many safety and security problems. It does help to protect the parked cars, however!

There is every reason to applaud the many new types of streets and policies that ensure safety for pedestrians and bicyclists while allowing service vehicles to make door-to-door deliveries.

From project to project, planners must consider which types of streets and degree of traffic integration would be a good solution. The actual and perceived safety of pedestrians must always be the determining factor. It is not a natural law that motorized traffic should be allowed access everywhere. It is generally accepted that cars are not welcome in parks, libraries, community centers and houses. The advantages to not having car traffic everywhere are obvious, so even though there are compelling arguments for allowing car traffic all the way to the front door, in many situations there are equally good arguments for establishing car-free areas surrounding the residences.

For centuries traffic in Venice has functioned on the principle that the transition from rapid to slow traffic does not take place at the front door but at the city limit. The Venice principle is hard to beat when prioritizing city quality. As mentioned above, a number of options have been developed for coexistence between pedestrian and motorized traffic. While these options open new doors, they also create more problems.

A pedestrian in Venice can be forgiven for thinking that many of the recent traffic solutions represent various forms of compromise compared to the vision of a true city for people. Or put in another way, in Venice it is easy to surmise that “there is only one thing better than slow cars — and that is no cars.” But as also mentioned, it is important to be pragmatic and flexible. There are many good new compromises, but they must be assessed and carefully selected.

In Venice the shift from rapid to slow traffic occurs at the city limits rather than at the front door. This is an interesting and inspiring for the contemporary vision of creating lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities.

Already in the first chapter of her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs discusses the importance of safety in the streets. She describes the crime-preventive effect of life in the street, of mixing functions in buildings and of residents’ care for common space. Her expressions “street watchers” and “eyes on the street” have since become integral to city planning terminology.

Being able to walk safely in city space is a prerequisite for creating inviting well-functioning cities for people. Experienced as well as perceived safety is crucial for life in the city.

The safety discussion has a general and a more detailed dimension. The general focus is maintaining and supporting the vision of an open society in which people from all socioeconomic groups can move about side by side in the common room of the city as they go about their daily business. Within this general framework, safety can also be promoted through careful consideration for the design of the many detailed solutions in the city.

Juxtaposed with the idealistic visions of safe open cities is the reality of many urban societies. Social and economic inequality is the backdrop for high crime rates and the fully or semiprivate attempts to protect property and private life.

A profusion of bars, fences, signs and cameras signals the insecurity and fear that have crept into communities around the world.

Barbed wire and iron bars fortify houses, security patrols cruise residential areas, security guards stand in front of shops and banks, signs threaten “armed response” outside houses in exclusive quarters, gated communities abound: all of these are examples of people’s attempts to protect themselves against invasion and trespass of private property. The examples also illustrate a general retreat to the private sphere by some population groups.

It is important to point out that simple individual urban crime-prevention solutions are not of much help, where the invasive sense of insecurity is often deeply rooted in social conditions. On the other hand, many urban communities are less gridlocked, including hard-hit city districts. In these areas there is every reason to make a solid effort to avoid the retreat of the population behind bars and barbed wire.

Other parts of the world do have cities and societies in which cultural tradition, family networks and social structure keep crime low despite economic inequalities.

To conclude, in almost all situations there are good arguments for working carefully to reinforce real and perceived safety, a prerequisite for using common city space.

If we shift the focus from defending the private sphere to a general discussion about feeling safe while walking in public space, we will find a clear-cut connection between the goal to strengthen city life and the desire for safety.

If we reinforce city life so that more people walk and spend time in common spaces, in almost every situation both real and perceived safety will increase. The presence of others indicates that a place is acceptly good and safe. There are “eyes in the street” and often “eyes on the street” as well because it has become meaningful and interesting for people in nearby buildings to follow what is going on in the street. When people make their daily rounds in city space, both the space and the people who use them becomes more meaningful and thus more important to keep an eye on and watch out for. A lively city becomes a valued city and thus also a safer city.

Life in the street has an impact on safety, but life along the street also plays a significant role. Urban areas with mixed functions provide more activities in and near buildings around the clock. Housing in particular signifies good connections to the city’s important common space and a marked reinforcement of the real and perceived safety in the evening and at night. So even if the street is deserted, lights from windows in residential areas send a comforting signal that people are nearby.

Approximately 7,000 residents live in Copenhagen’s city center. On an ordinary weekday evening in the winter season a person walking through the city can enjoy the lights from about 7,000 windows.

The light from buildings along city streets can make a significant contribution to the feeling of security when darkness falls. Above: Bakery in Amman, Jordan.

The Apple Store in Sydney, Australia.

The proximity to housing and residents plays a key role in the feeling of safety. It is common practice for city planners to mix functions and housing as a crime prevention strategy and thus increase the feeling of safety along the most important streets used by pedestrians and bicyclists. The strategy works well in Copenhagen, where the city center has buildings between five and six stories high, and there is good visual contact between residences and street space. The strategy does not work as well in Sydney. Although the Australian metropolis has 15,000 people living in its heart, the residences are generally from 10 to 50 stories above street level, no one who lives high up can see what is happening down on the street.

Tall buildings can also land softly and elegantly along streets and soften the transition between out and in (Lloyd´s of London. Architects: Richard Rogers Partnership, 1978 - 86).

Ground floor building design has a disproportionately large impact on the life and appeal of city space. Ground floors are what we see when we walk past buildings. It is also from the lower floors that people inside can follow what is going on outside, and vice versa. If ground floors are friendly, soft and — in particular — populated, pedestrians are surrounded by human activity. Even at night when little is happening in cafés and front yards, furniture, flowers, parked bicycles and forgotten toys are a comforting witness of life and proximity to other people. Light streaming from the windows of shops, offices and dwellings at night helps increase the feeling of safety in the street.

Soft edges signal to people that a city is welcoming. In contrast, in streets with retail, where solid metal shutters close off shops outside opening hours a sense of rejection and insecurity is produced. The streets are dark and deserted in the evening, and there is not much reason to be there on weekends and holidays either. Given the general desire for safe cities and inviting ground floors, preferred façade options have open metal grills and other types of transparency to protect goods but allow light to stream onto the street, and they also give nocturnal pedestrians the pleasure of window shopping.

Life in the street and on the street, mixed functions along the street and friendly edge zones are key qualities for good cities — also in terms of safety and protection. The polar opposite is the perfect recipe for an insecure urban environment: lifeless streets, mono-functional buildings devoid of activity for most of the day, closed, lifeless and dark façades. To this list we can add insufficient lighting, deserted paths and pedestrian tunnels, dark nooks and crannies, and too many bushes.

In the face of this rather depressing scenario it is important to remember that almost any enticement to invite people to walk, bicycle and stay in city space will also contribute to a greater sense of security.

A soft edge and clear distinctions be- tween public, semiprivate and private territories provide good opportunities to signal where you live and decorate it with your favorite flowers (Almere, the Netherlands).

Another contribution to our sense of security is a good city layout that makes it is easy for us to find our way around. It is a mark of good urban quality when we can directly find the destination we’re looking for without hesitation and detours. Clear structure and organization do not require large dimensions and broad straight roads from point to point. It is fine for the streets to be winding and the street network varied. What is important is that the individual links in the network have clear visual characteristics, that space has a distinctive character and that important streets can be distinguished from less important ones. Signs and directions and good lighting at night are crucial elements of the relationship between city structure, sense of locality and feeling of security when walking in the city.

In the chapter on human senses, it was mentioned how different distances are used for various types of communication between people, and how these distances are continuously used to reinforce the character and intensity of contacts. Interacting with others and protecting our private sphere are two sides of the same coin. Just as close contact necessitates precisely defined territories, a clear articulation of private and public territories on the larger arena is an important prerequisite for social opportunities and a sense of security.

Human society is subtly organized around various social structures that define and reinforce the individual’s sense of affiliation and security. A university student is part of a structure with faculties, departments, classes and study groups that provide a framework. Workplaces have divisions, departments and teams. Cities have quarters, neighborhoods, housing complexes and single dwellings. Coupled with well-known designations and signals, these structures in themselves help reinforce a sense of affiliation within the larger entity and security for the individual group, household or person.

Also on a small scale — particularly in connection with individual dwellings — clarifying territories and affiliations is crucial for contact with others and for protecting the private sphere. Whereas efforts are made to graduate and soften transitions between private and public areas by building semiprivate and semipublic transition zones, the likelihood of contact from zone to zone increases, and residents gain the opportunity to regulate contacts and protect private life. A well-proportioned transition zone can keep events at a comfortable arm’s length.

In the previous section soft edges and their importance for life in the city are discussed. It is emphasized that edge zones, porches and front yards can make a decisive contribution to vitalizing life in public space. These transition zones between the private and public sphere must be carefully articulated in order to clearly distinguish between what is private and what is public.

Changes in pavement, landscaping, furniture, hedges, gates and canopies can mark where public space ends and fully or semiprivate transition zones begin. Height differences, steps and staircases can also mark the transition zone, providing critical prerequisite for the important function of soft edges as the link between inside and out, between private and public. Only when territories are clearly marked can the private sphere afford the degree of protection that people need to make contact with others and contribute to life in the city.

Pedestrian and bicycle traffic save a lot of space in the city. Bicycle paths have room for five times more traffic than car lanes. The sidewalk has room for 20 times more travellers than car lanes.

New Yorkers get most of their physical activity simply from getting around, not from working out. Image: NYC DOH

The New York City Department of Health is out with a new bulletin [PDF] articulating the public health benefits of walking, biking, and taking transit. Encouraging those modes — and curbing the amount we drive — will reduce deaths and injuries from traffic crashes, prevent lung disease by lowering exposure to air pollution, and improve cardiovascular health by increasing exercise.

The evidence is pretty overwhelming — just 30 minutes of walking or biking each weekday reduces your risk of premature death by 20 percent — and the department’s recommendations are clear: New Yorkers should drive less, and the city should build the infrastructure to make walking, biking, and riding transit as safe and convenient as possible.

Most of the Health Department’s factoids have already been reported, like the life-saving improvements in air quality as a result of closing parts of Broadway to traffic. But one caught our eye as a new reminder of the importance of daily commute habits for your health.

While many think of going to the gym or for a jog as the key to staying in shape, a DOH survey found that New Yorkers get most of their physical activity as they go about their daily routine. The majority of New Yorkers who take transit to work, for example, get eleven minutes of physical activity each day from recreation. But they move for 57 minutes a day just to get around, whether it’s to walk to the bus or run some errands during lunch. New Yorkers who walk or bike to work get slightly more exercise than transit riders as part of their daily routine, while drivers get less than half as much. The city’s compact development and strong transit system are the key to incorporating activities that lower New Yorkers’ risk of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

The Health Department report should also underscore how misguided it is to argue, as Assembly Member Dov Hikind has, against traffic calming on the grounds that it might some day slow speeding ambulances by a few seconds. The city’s top doctors are making the case for more traffic calming on city streets, not for the primacy of free-flowing traffic. This bulletin even singles out pedestrian refuge islands, the very safety feature that Hikind is suing to eliminate, for an endorsement.

New and expanded pedestrian islands and sidewalks on the north side of GAP will create safer and more direct connections to walk to the central plaza area. (This image comes from DOT's 2010 presentation on GAP and may not include minor changes to this part of the plan.)

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT’s 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

DOT made its revised presentation Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition‘s annual meeting. It was an anniversary of sorts for GAPCO, a partnership between the area’s major cultural institutions and neighborhood residents, which formed in 2006 to make Grand Army Plaza a welcoming public space instead of a traffic vortex. Since then GAPCO has put together several public workshops and site visits, producing a conceptual blueprint for city agencies to work from [PDF].

Image: Google Maps

The big difference between last year’s DOT plan and this year’s is that the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street has been set aside until an unspecified date in the future. Plaza Street encircles most of GAP, and a two-way path would create a safe hub for cyclists to take the most convenient routes to and through the space. But after last year’s CB votes, some Plaza Street residents contacted the city saying the parking-protected bikeway would cause traffic back-ups, even though Plaza Street receives little traffic and is already just one lane wide.

So call it the NBBL effect: Despite the multi-year community-based planning process that informed last year’s presentation, and despite the community board votes in favor of it, DOT seems unwilling, for now, to stir the pot so close to the litigious and well-connected NIMBYs of Prospect Park West, who happen to have  U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer on their side.

The improvements scheduled for this summer are still significant, and they represent a major milestone in the campaign to make GAP more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Starting in June and wrapping up in August, the city plans to build out these improvements, which Streetsblog reported on last April:

• On the north end of the plaza, northbound traffic on Flatbush and southbound traffic on Vanderbilt will cross at a greatly simplified X-shaped intersection. The pedestrian spaces that define the boundaries of the “X” will be much more generous and well-defined than the mish-mash of poorly-connected islands and striping that people navigate now. Walking to the central public space will be safer and simpler, especially if you’re approaching from Park Slope.
• The area between the arch and the central plaza will be set off with DOT’s epoxy-and-gravel surface treatment, seen on Broadway and other pedestrian reclamation projects. Physical barriers will be added to keep cars from illegally cutting across.
• On the south side of the plaza, pedestrian islands will be expanded and crosswalks will be added, making it easier to walk between Union Street, Plaza Street, and the greenmarket area. The greenmarket area will also be set off with epoxy-and-gravel and have physical barriers from traffic.

The bike improvements to be built out this summer should greatly improve east-west connections on the south side of the plaza and create better transitions at the northern end of the Prospect Park West bike lane. A new two-way, separated bike path will run from Union Street to Eastern Parkway, making bicycle access to Prospect Park, the GAP greenmarket, and Prospect Park West much improved.

The south end of the GAP plan (looking south toward the Brooklyn Public Library) expands pedestrian space and clearly sets it off from the asphalt expanse of the roadway. It also includes a two-way connection for bikes between Eastern Parkway and Union Street. Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch

Without the two-way Plaza Street lane, however, GAP won’t be as useful and convenient a hub for bicycling as it could be, and it’s hard to say when that missing piece will get filled in. NYC DOT downtown Brooklyn coordinator Chris Hrones said outreach to Plaza Street residents would continue, and that the city intends to pursue the unfinished part of the project at a later, unspecified date.

No one from the PPW opposition attended the meeting, but their presence was felt nonetheless. “DOT is excellent about coming to the community, presenting to the community, working with the community, and getting the proper sign-offs from the community,” GAPCO coordinator Rob Witherwax said in his introduction, praising DOT for being engaged on the project from the beginning. “For people who after the fact don’t like the result to say the process was bad is patently false.”

DOT will be taking the revised proposal before CB 6 and CB 8 (again) in the next few weeks. The full presentation will be online then. In the meantime, Amy Sara Clark at the Park Slope Patch has some photos of the plan shown Saturday.

Kids biking to school in Illinois. Photo courtesy of Safe Routes to School National Partnership.

This week, 12 Democratic Senators introduced a bill to maintain current funding for Safe Routes to School at $183 million and keep it as a standalone program.

Those seem like reasonable goals, but even they will be a haul. The next reauthorization, as we’ve been amply warned, may be even smaller than the last one, given low revenues. And everyone from the administration on down is in favor of consolidating programs, meaning Safe Routes to School would be one piece of a much bigger pie called “Livability.”

It’s also telling that the Partnership couldn’t get a single Republican co-sponsor on the bill. Last time around, they had three. But this time, with everything getting cut, GOP lawmakers were reluctant to “play favorites” and recommend one program for sustained funding. And with the reauthorization process well underway, the Partnership didn’t want to wait any longer to try to attract GOP sponsors. They moved the bill forward with Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) taking the lead.

Safe Routes to school pulls communities together to identify trouble spots that prevent parents from feeling safe letting their kids walk or bike to school. Sometimes it means building or widening a sidewalk. Sometimes parents create “walking school buses,” where an adult accompanies a whole gaggle of kids on their walk. Sometimes it means raising crosswalks or calming traffic or installing flashing School Zone signs. In communities where crime or harassment is the biggest deterrent, SRTS works with police to address personal safety.

In some communities, Pedroso acknowledges, walking to school just isn’t an option. So the new bill allows for 10 percent of SRTS funds to be spent on safe routes to bus stops. “In really, really rural communities where kids live miles and miles from school, they’re not going to be able to walk or bike to school,” said Pedroso. “What they’re often struggling with is safety getting to the bus. And they may be walking on these county roads where there are no shoulders, no lighting, they’re right up against the tree line, and there’s really not a safe place for them.”

SRTS currently only applies to grades K through 8, but the Partnership aims to change that. Included in the Senate bill is language to expand limited eligibility to high schools, but only in partnership with an elementary or middle school. “In many communities, the high school and the junior high are built very close together,” said Pedroso. “So if you’re putting in a mile of sidewalk, for example, to a junior high and the high school is just a quarter mile away, it makes sense to do that extra quarter mile because you can serve a larger group of kids.”

Photo courtesy of Safe Routes to School National Partnership.

In the last Congress, the bill would have simply expanded eligibility to include high schools without limitations.

One inclusion in the bill that’s sure to please many Republicans who have been looking to trim spending and reduce project delays is a provision to address “regulatory burden.” Indeed, Pedroso says, despite the categorical exclusion for bike and pedestrian projects from the mandate for environmental review, many times SRTS projects had to go through many bureaucratic hurdles for even the smallest of projects.

The language that created Safe Routes to School stipulated that SRTS projects be treated like federal aid highways, forced to meet the highest review standards. “These regulations were designed with large-scale, complicated construction projects in mind,” said Pedroso. “When you’re applying them to a couple-hundred-thousand-dollar sidewalk project that’s usually within the right-of-way of an existing road, that’s a lot of paperwork, and for the size of the grant, a big percentage of that is being spent on regulatory compliance.”

States were making project recipients prove they were exempt from environmental review. AASHTO is producing a best-practices guide for states to implement SRTS projects. “It would help to have clarification that for non-infrastructure projects you don’t have to fill out construction paperwork. That actually does happen. You get a $5,000 bicycle and pedestrian safety education grant and you’re filling out construction paperwork for it.”

The bill is technically a proposal to amend SAFETEA-LU, but since SAFETEA-LU is at the end of its life span, it will be considered as part of the reauthorization debate for the whole surface transportation program. It’s been referred to the Environment and Public Works Committee.

America Walks is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to walkability and pedestrian rights. Image: Post-Gazette

Which may be part of the reason it’s been hard for pedestrian advocacy organizations to build a strong identity around walking.

Urban cyclists are constantly aware of themselves as cyclists on streets that aren’t well designed for them. Folks walking the dog or going from the transit station to their office may not identify as strongly as pedestrians.

Maybe it’s the specialized equipment that builds a sense of identity. According to Jeff Miller, president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, rates of association membership for snowmobilers in Maine, where he used to work, are far higher than rates of bicyclist association membership will ever be.

But walking is the default – it’s “the first and most fundamental form of transportation. Everybody is a pedestrian at some point in each day, even if it’s just walking from the car to the office.”

That’s how America Walks describes the challenge – and the purpose – of its campaign to foster walkability.

America Walks isn’t a new organization – it’s been around for 15 years. But it’s in the process of reinventing itself. It’s the only national organization dedicated exclusively to the rights of pedestrians. “It’s about people having places to walk to and using walking as their daily form of transportation, physical activity, and recreation,” says acting director Scott Bricker. “It’s about getting them up off couch and walking out the door.”

America Walks was created to support community-based pedestrian advocacy groups, but in their new draft strategic plan, released today for public comment, they acknowledge that it’s been slow going. [PDF]

Over the past fifteen years, however, only a limited number of pedestrian-only advocacy organizations have successfully staffed up and the America Walks membership has modestly increased to twenty-six organizations. Simultaneously, many other organizations have begun to integrate walking into their missions, including bicycle, youth, health, aging, business, development, equity, social justice, smart growth, and environmental groups.

So America Walks is making those lemons into lemonade. It’s transforming from a membership organization into a coalition of those groups that are beginning to recognize walkability as an important part of their own work. They include AARP, the American Heart Association, the Rails to Trails Conservancy, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the National Associations of Realtors, and the American Public Transportation Association. By 2012, America Walks hopes to increase its coalition from 70 current organizational members to 500, all coming to the table from a variety of perspectives.

Moving forward, America Walks is planning two national campaigns. One is aimed at reducing driving speeds and creating community speed-free zones. The other will work to increase pedestrian access to transit and jobs, especially for seniors, low-income people and people with disabilities.

The new strategic plan starts with a vision statement they’re hoping to get 25,000 people to sign onto:

By 2020, walking in everyday life is embraced across America. Streets and neighborhoods are safe and attractive public places that encourage people of all ages, abilities, ethnicities, and incomes to walk for exercise, recreation, and transportation. Walkable community policies promote health, economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and social equity.

If that’s the future, it’s also the past. After all, as America Walks points out, “In 1969 walking made up 40 percent of all transportation trips, but in 2008 walking trips decreased to 11 percent.” Although walking is good for our heart rates and waistlines, modern road design can make it hazardous to our health: in the past 15 years, 76,000 pedestrians have been killed.

“We need to create places where you feel safe and comfortable walking along the street and even in the street, playing in the street,” says Bricker. “Crossing the street needs to be easy, accessible and safe.” He points to simple additions like crosswalks, raised median islands, and countdown signals as innovations that immeasurably improve the pedestrian experience.

Funding for active transportation has risen dramatically from 0.1 percent of the federal transportation program in 1992 to 2 percent this year. Considering the fact that 11 percent of all trips are by foot, America Walks wants to make sure walking gets its fair piece of the pie.

And though creating a strong identity among walkers can be challenging, Bricker says, “We don’t hear people saying, ‘this is not important, walking is not part of the transportation system.’ People understand that walking is a fundamental part of life.”

To have your say on America Walks’ draft strategic plan, read it here: [PDF].

For those of you who don’t know him yet – meet Zozo. He’s our big purple friend who loves anything that gets people out of cars and moving about the streets. You might find him riding his ZoGo along the new Prospect Park West bike lane, sitting out in the pedestrian plazas on Broadway, or catching the 4 train to amble about the city. (In this video, you’ll also see him joined by a special guest about 20 seconds in.)

So, we can’t think of a better way to get ready for this year’s International Walk to School Day on October 6, than to get the info directly from Zozo. According to the folks at the National Center for Safe Routes to School, this awareness-builder began in 1997 when the Partnership for a Walkable America sponsored the first Walk Our Children to School Day in Chicago. Since 2002, it’s become a worldwide event, with schools in all 50 states leading the way for healthier kids. Make sure you get out and walk or ride your bike that day!

In 2009, there were great events in New York City and San Francisco that Streetfilms captured. For more info on this year’s event, go to www.walktoschool.org. 

States with the highest obesity rates also tend to be where the fewest people bike or walk to work. Image: CDC

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Tuesday showed the number of obese Americans has increased by 2.4 million since 2007. There are now nine states where more than 30 percent of the population qualifies as obese -- up from three states in 2007. (Just ten years ago, no state had obesity levels above 30 percent). 

The following day, Gallup released a ranking of the nation’s most and least obese states as part of a broader index of well-being. By its accounting, a cluster of states in the southeast -- West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Carolina -- have the highest rates of obesity, while the thinnest states, mainly in the west and New England, tend to have obesity rates about ten percentage points lower.

In the CDC ranking of states (which varies slightly from the Gallup ranking), Colorado and the District of Columbia are the only states with obesity rates under 20 percent, making their rate nearly 15 points lower than the most obese states. Their secret? During a press briefing, the CDC's Bill Dietz speculated that Colorado’s investment in biking and walking trails, as well as District residents' frequent use of public transportation, which goes hand in hand with walking and thus burns more calories than driving, are possible factors.

Indeed, if you look at rates of active commuting (walking and biking) in the most and least obese states, a revealing correlation emerges. Three of the five most obese states in the Gallup ranking are also among the five states with the smallest percentage of people who bike to work. At the other end of the spectrum, four of the ten thinnest states are among those where people bike to work most frequently. (The commuting rates come from Census data detailed in this League of American Bicyclists report.)

The relationship seems to hold up when you include walking. People in the five most obese states make about 5.2 percent of all trips by bike or on foot, according to data published recently in a 2010 benchmarking report from the Alliance for Biking and Walking. In contrast, people in the five least obese states made twice as many trips -- 10.2 percent of them -- by bike or on foot. 

It seems unlikely that you can chalk this all up to coincidence, but it's worth noting that these are back-of-the-envelope comparisons made without the eye of a trained statistician. And, as Dietz noted in the press briefing, other factors (such as demographic differences) surely play an important role.

For a second opinion, I checked with John Pucher, a Rutgers University planning professor with ample experience crunching these sorts of numbers. The relationship between a lack of active commuting and obesity is absolutely real, Pucher said via email. In fact, Pucher and colleagues have just completed a rigorous study of the relationship in which they examined health and travel data for 14 countries, all 50 U.S. states, and 47 of the 50 largest American cities.

At all three levels, the researchers found a clear negative relationship between active travel and obesity. Differences in transportation choices account for nearly a third of the variation in obesity rate among states, their analysis shows. Since the study hasn't been published officially, Pucher couldn't reveal any more specifics at this time. But stay tuned: The full study will come out in the American Journal of Public Health on August 20, and we'll have more details then.

Federal funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects reached a new high last year, according to a report released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. In terms of dollars, federal investment in walking and biking more than doubled compared to the previous high, set in 2007, thanks largely to an infusion of $400 million in stimulus funds.

The share of all federal transportation spending devoted to bike-ped projects also rose to an unprecedented level -- all of two percent. Advocates for walking and biking applauded the trend while pointing out the potential for much greater federal commitment to active transportation.

"It continues to be an improvement, and it continues to be a tiny fraction of the money that's available to potentially be spent on biking and walking," said Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists.

Subtracting the $400 million one-shot in stimulus funding, Clarke noted, yields a less impressive year-on-year increase. And part of the increase in reported bike-ped spending might also simply reflect better record keeping by state DOTs, as agencies document the construction of sidewalks and bike lanes as part of larger projects, according to Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition.

The spending figures come from an update on the state of walking and biking that the feds release every five years. The original National Bicycling and Walking Study, released in 1994, set two major targets: to double walk and bike mode-share, from 7.9 percent of all trips to 15.8 percent; and to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities by 10 percent.

Today, walking and biking account for 11.9 percent of all trips in the country, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey cited in the FHWA report. The safety target, meanwhile, has already been met, with pedestrian deaths down 22 percent and cycling deaths down 13 percent between 1994 and 2008.

In a post on the U.S. DOT Secretary's blog, Ray LaHood implied that the targets have to get more ambitious:

But, we are still talking about 4,378 pedestrians and 716 bicyclists killed in 2008. No matter how we look at the data, that is just too many.

One way to strengthen national goals for walking and biking, Clarke suggested, is to make them less open-ended and attach specific timeframes for achieving them. "That performance metric is essential," he said, noting that the original 1994 targets were weakened by the lack of a deadline. "One could argue that we could have achieved [the mode-share target] years ago. We would say, let's recalibrate, so that by 2020 we need to reach 20 percent mode share for bike-walk."

The progress cited in today's report, said Clarke, highlights the need for a robust federal commitment to walking and biking in the next federal transportation bill. "States wouldn't have done this if left to their own devices," he said. "Without the federal leadership, without the funding and targets, we would not have seen movement voluntarily. We need that continued federal leadership in the next transportation bill moving forward. The states have not embraced it sufficiently for it to be left to chance."

FTA chief Peter Rogoff addressing cyclists at this morning's Bike to Work Day events. (Photo: U.S. DOT)

The U.S. DOT sent several senior officials to this morning's capital-area bike events, using the day to finalize a new expansion of eligibility for federal funding of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure connected to transit.

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff, who suited up for a morning ride into downtown D.C., told fellow cyclists that "the Obama Administration will keep supporting cycle-friendly policies because they help connect communities in ways that are beneficial to everyone at very little cost," according to a statement released by the U.S. DOT.

First proposed in November, the FTA's new policy for boosting federal bike-ped spending sets radius surrounding a transit station in which bike infrastructure projects would be eligible for aid at three miles. Pedestrian projects within a half-mile of transit stations would be eligible for federal assistance. The previous regulatory radius was 1,500 feet, in most cases.

Meanwhile, nine national cycling and pedestrian advocacy groups released a letter in advance of Bike to Work Day seeking extra clean transport funding from the new Senate climate bill. The groups studiously avoided the critical tone that the transit industry and state DOTs used on Wednesday to seek a greater share of the revenue from the climate measure; nonetheless, the bike-ped backers urged sponsors Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) to lift their legislation's limit on transport spending.

The letter's signatories -- including America Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists -- began by lauding Kerry and Lieberman for requiring that any revenue from their bill's proposed new fuel fees be spent on emissions-cutting transport projects.

Noting that infrastructure investments from the bill's new fuel fees would operate under a ceiling of slightly more than $6 billion per year, the groups added:

While we appreciate that this level of funding is greater than prior climate bills, it still limits the ability of states, counties, cities and transit systems to invest in sustainable transportation. The market needs a stronger signal regarding the importance of shifting our transportation modes to low- and no-carbon alternatives.

The bike-ped advocates proposed an increase in climate revenue set aside for transportation that would be commensurate with the estimated U.S. emissions generated by the movement of people and goods -- about 30 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A map of potential greenway routes and east-west connections in Sunset Park. Image: UPROSE

Determining a buildable greenway route in Sunset Park is a complicated proposition. The waterfront is an active industrial district filled with the sort of facilities that pose logistical hurdles for safe walking and biking. West of the BQE, the greenway route will have to negotiate obstacles like the 65th Street rail yard, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the active freight rail corridor on First Avenue. It won't be easy, but as Brooklyn Greenway Initiative planning director Milton Puryear told me last night, it's a place where you've got to think big.

A finished greenway in Sunset Park would bring huge payoffs. Sunset Park has one of the highest walk-to-work rates in the city, and a major new waterfront park is slated for the Bush Terminal Piers. So in addition to providing a route along the waterfront, the greenway project is a chance to connect the residential areas east of Third Avenue to the new park and the waterfront's industrial job center, using safe walking and bicycling paths. There's already a well-established base of local support for creating those connections: The United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park (UPROSE) started holding public workshops about the greenway and waterfront access in 2005.

The main focus of last night's workshop was to get ideas from residents about where the greenway should go. Participants split up into groups and then presented to the whole audience.

Mapping out a greenway route. Photo: Dan Wiley, office of Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez.

As for the greenway route, a few groups proposed some heavy duty walk-bike infrastructure for the trickiest segments, including bridges spanning the 65th Street railyard and the Gowanus Bay, and an elevated path over First Avenue.

Soledad Gaztambide, transportation justice coordinator for UPROSE, said she was encouraged to hear people ask for routes that stay close to the water. "I'm really hoping that they put the main route along the waterfront, and First and Second," she said. "We want to have an industrial waterfront but we also think it could be multi-use."

DOT is working to build parts of the greenway footprint as soon as possible (see Kent Avenue and Flushing Avenue), but it will be a couple of years before the ideas from yesterday's workshop show up in a final plan. The greenway master planning process, which continues with a workshop at the Red Hook Recreation Center on April 13, is slated to wrap up in 2012.

(Chart: NCSRS/SRSNP)

The percentage of U.S. students between ages five and 14 who walk or bike to school has remained stable over the past 15 years but remains three-quarters below where it stood 40 years ago, according to a new analysis of government data by two groups working on the Safe Routes to School (SRtS) program.

Crunching numbers from the U.S. DOT's National Household Travel Survey, the National Center for SRtS and the SRtS National Partnership concluded that between 1969 and 2009, school transportation habits essentially flipped -- with auto use rising from 12 percent of the student population to 44 percent, and biking or walking going from a 48-percent popularity rate with kids to just 13 percent.

Despite the fact that the share of students choosing to walk or bike to school has remained around 12 percent since 1995, the SRtS groups saw a silver lining to their findings: Their efforts appear to be making headway when it comes to shorter trips from home to school. When the data was restricted to students traveling less than one mile to classes, 38 percent walked or biked last year.

“There is a real opportunity to change the car culture and make school campuses less congested if more of the parents who are driving shorter distances let their children walk or bike to school, and those who driving further distances let their children ride school buses,” Lauren Marchetti, director of the National Center for SRtS, said in a statement.

SRtS directs federal transportation dollars to help localities build dedicated infrastructure for kids up to age 14 to walk or bike to school. Members of Congress from both parties have endorsed legislation that would expand the program to high schools as part of the next six-year federal transport bill.

Image: NYCDOT via @nycbridgereport

Users will be re-routed to the north path until the first phase of work is completed. Crews will then move to the north path as users are directed to the south. The full construction timeline is unknown at this point.

Also tomorrow, Transportation Alternatives will be surveying cyclists on the Manhattan side about the routes they take once they get off the bridge. How many people keep riding straight on Delancey Street, and how many are using the first available side street?

With DOT adding new bike routes on side streets in an attempt to divert cyclists from dangerous Delancey, the survey could provide useful before-and-after data, said TA's Caroline Samponaro. The lanes on Suffolk, Rivington, and Stanton are slated for striping later this spring. "If people are continuing to ride on Delancey," Samponaro asked, " what does that mean?"

You can take the survey at the Manhattan base of the bridge from 7 to 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Photo: Jo Sef Gray/Flickr

"The Inwood Hill Runners are planning a celebratory crossing to Riverdale on the first Saturday of its re-opening," says Tamara Ewoldt, a running group organizer and Inwood resident who first alerted Streetsblog to the bridge closure two-and-a-half years ago. "The availability of this route will improve our safety because it will allow us to avoid running through traffic elsewhere. We have waited a long time for this and look forward to a modernized pathway."

Tangentially, when researching potential links for this post we found a 2003 New York Times article that recalls how the tolled Henry Hudson Bridge, constructed in the 1930s, came to divide Manhattan's last remaining natural woodland in the first place. In light of Pedro Espada's proposal to toll East River bridges but put no price on "free" Harlem River crossings, it's a story that still resonates:

Robert Caro's biography ''The Power Broker,'' published in 1975, outlines the characteristic [Robert] Moses ingenuity at getting things done. Moses was allowed to use free federal labor on ''park access roads,'' which is how he designated his highway through Inwood Hill Park. The park site also provided land at no cost.

Furthermore, the bankers who issued bonds looked skeptically on the prospect of a toll bridge built close to an existing free bridge, the Broadway Bridge. Thus, he was bound to the Inwood Hill Park route, even though it would destroy the ancient silence of the place, as well as despoil the sleepy neighborhood of Spuyten Duyvil.

Atlantic and Flatbush time lapse from tracy collins on Vimeo.

This time-lapse film by Tracy Collins at Not Another F*cking Blog is a telling indictment of poor pedestrian conditions at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. And depending on how Bruce Ratner's new sports arena is built out -- the groundbreaking is set for this week -- things could get much worse.

As exemplified by the crosswalk hogs in the video, this is a terrible environment for pedestrians right now. If and when the arena arrives, two things will happen: thousands of pedestrians will arrive via transit to get to games -- the more the better, but they'll need more space; and more people will be driving here, especially if there's a huge surface parking lot.

Note that Forest City Ratner has not answered questions about all the "interim" surface parking it intends to construct. Scroll down this post for a thorough list of related unresolved issues from the Dean Street Block Association, care of Norman Oder.

NHTS data from 2001 and 2009 shows a major increase in sustainable transportation. Image via Mobilizing the Region.

Last year, 11.9 percent of all trips were on foot or by bike, while 4.2 percent of trips were on transit. Both figures signify major increases.

The National Household Travel Survey, the source of the new stats, is the gold-standard for transportation data. As Mobilizing the Region reported, while the Census only tracks how people get to work, the NHTS gathers data on all trips taken. It also distinguishes between, say, driving to a park-and-ride bus area and walking to the local bus stop.

The downside to the NHTS is how infrequently the survey is conducted, which makes it difficult to determine how much the 2009 data reflects a larger trend, and how much may be due to temporary changes brought on by fluctuating gas prices and the recession.

The high quality of NHTS data means that it can supplement NYC DOT's own numbers, which have shown a large rise in cycling over the same period. We've put in a request to the state DOT and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council to get access to city-level data once it becomes available.