Transforming Auto – Oriented Communities to Walkable Neighborhoods

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION: 4

2. LITERATURE STUDY: 6

3. CASE STUDY: 8

3.1 Introduction: 8

3.2 CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: 9

3.3 KEY FINDINGS/ RESULTS: 10

3.4 RECOMMENDATIONS: 12

4. DISCUSSION/ ANALYSIS: 14

5. CONCLUSION: 15

References 16

APPENDIX A………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

APPENDIX B…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20

APPENDIX C………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………22

APPENDIX D……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..24

Table of figures

Figure 1 San Jose, California 17

Figure 2 Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace 18

Figure 3 West Evergreen 19

Figure 4 Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan (PEDS) Instrument 20

Figure 5 Walkability Audit Instrument (WAI) 21

Figure 6 FWBT Walkability Audit Scores 22

Figure 7 WE Walkablity Audit Scores 23

List of Tables

Table 1 Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace - Top Five Segments 24

Table 2 Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace - Bottom Five Segments 24

Table 3 West Evergreen Top Five Segments 25

Table 4 West Evergreen Bottom Five Segments 25

Summary:

Walkability generally refers to various features of a community or neighbourhood that create a place that is easily able to be travelled without the use of an automobile. Walkability offers benefits to our health, the environment, our finances, and our communities. At present conditions we have different health problems like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, depression, some types of cancers, quality of life and safety problems like Accidents due to over speed, adequate pedestrian facilities, crime, streetscapes, traffic and walking to schools/other places. To overcome all this problems and to improve the quality of life of people a Walkable community makes this dream come true.

Most of the cities in the United States are auto oriented and more 85% (according to NHTS) of travelling is done by private vehicles. Due to this most of the cities are affected and experiencing the problems like traffic congestion, accidents, air pollution and health issues to the people. Private vehicles like cars, trucks and etc. are more comfortable, can access to any places with no trouble and cheap gas prices made people to use this vehicles rather than using public transit and non-motorized transportation. Therefore there is no proper physical exercise to the people like no walking, no proper walking spaces, air pollution etc. which in turn creating many problems to the people like obesity, mental health conditions, accidents and many more. To overcome all this kind of issues there is a need to develop and encourage more walkable communities than auto oriented communities.

The aim of this paper is to compare both auto oriented and walkable communities to find advantages & disadvantages, finding parameters to transform auto oriented communities to walkable communities and to encourage more walkable communities to develop.

1. INTRODUCTION:

Auto oriented communities are also known as sprawl. The sprawl is identified as a spread of development far away from the cities and population growth (Reid Ewing). These communities are not compact and the population spread horizontally with lack of access to the public transit, public uses and etc. The auto oriented communities are different from the people oriented neighborhoods and compact developments. The communities with low residential density, large number of single family houses, neighborhood mix, lack of strength of activity centers and lack of access to street networks is termed as auto oriented communities (Reid Ewing).

In this communities, people use their cars for even shorter distances. This lead to the increased vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and increase in the usage of cars. When communities grow outside of the cities, it adds extra infrastructure costs like roads, water supply and electricity etc. to the government. When people start using cars for shorter distances it discourage the walking and biking. Therefore it impacts there health conditions like obesity, cardio vascular diseases, diabetes and etc. The United States is auto oriented development. According to the National Household Travel Survey 2001, use of non-motorized vehicles is very less i.e. by walk & bike 8.6% and by transit 1.5% out of 100% trips made by different modes (Pat S. Hu, 2004). More than 85% of trips were made by the cars because the cities are designed especially for the cars.

Walkable neighborhoods are specially designed for the people. This neighborhoods are environmentally friendly, increase the property values, and increases the people health (SCHROEDER, 2010). It is recommended that 30 minutes of walk is necessary per day for the better health to the public. This neighborhoods encourages people to walk and bike to shorter distances, makes sense of community like feels safety to the public by walking on the streets, and attracts people to use the public area for free. Walkable neighborhoods are extremely important for the present and future generations. So that the existing communities are in need to transform into walkable neighborhoods by considering required changes to the community at street level. By transforming or retrofitting the community, it brings people out of their homes to the public areas to interact with other people, brings health lifestyle, and enhance