Tag: Urban Walking
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30 km/h Town
A significant factor contributing to pedestrian deaths and serious injuries is the speed a vehicle is going when it hits them. A pedestrian hit by a vehicle moving at 30 km/h has a 9 in 10 chance of surviving the collision; a pedestrian hit by a vehicle moving at 50 km/h has a 2 in…
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Pedestrians First: Tools for a Walkable City
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) is “a global organization at the forefront of innovation, using technical expertise, direct advocacy, and policy guidance to mitigate the impacts of climate change, improve air quality, and support prosperous, sustainable, and equitable cities.” The ITDP website has a wide range of studies and reports, and tools…
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Jane’s Walk
Jane’s Walk started in Toronto in 2006 and quickly began to spread around the world, with walks now taking place in more than 500 cities. Named after the influential writer and activist Jane Jacobs, Jane’s Walk are volunteer-led public walks that look at different aspects of the cities they take place in. Laura Pfeifer, who…
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Right of Way?
Angie Schmitt’s Right of Way looks at the ways in which pedestrian deaths are not really accidents, but the result of ignoring pedestrian safety when we design our cities, roads and vehicles. Pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. increased a shocking 80% between 2009 – 2023! Jeff Speck, whose book Walkable City we’ve previously noted, wrote…
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How wide is your sidewalk?
A city’s approach to sidewalks has a huge impact on the experiences of its pedestrians. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the National Research Council published Sidewalk Design, Construction and Maintenance, which “recommends a minimum Residential Street sidewalk width of 1.5 metres. When the sidewalk is located adjacent to the curb on major roadways, the…
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Useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting
Three books with similar titles that look at how urban planning impacts our experiences as pedestrians. Mary Soderstrom’s The Walkable City (2008) takes us through Paris, New York, Toronto, North Vancouver and Singapore, and examines how cities have changed the lives of ordinary citizens – in positive and negative ways. Soderstrom spoke with Pedestrian Space…
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Dickens’s night walks
In my late teens and early twenties I read a lot of Charles Dickens. In Peter Ackroyd’s (unabridged) biography Dickens (1990), I learned more about the man behind the writing. An aspect of his life that really fascinated me was the long nocturnal walks Dickens would take to try and deal with insomnia and the…
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Iain Sinclair’s London
Iain Sinclair has spent decades roaming the British capital on foot and excavating the city’s psychogeography in books such as London Orbital, where he follows the route of the M25 motorway, and London Overground, where he walks alongside the city’s Overground rail network. Sinclair has said that 2017’s The Last London is his final book…
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Phone zombies, drifters, speed bumps
Lauren Elkin, whose book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City is profiled on the Resources page, contributed a radio essay to the BBC on the types of pedestrians one encounters on urban sidewalks: “Elkin reckons that the way people walk, their gait, is a signifier. It also tells us something about ourselves as we watch people…
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Ken Wilson – Pedestrian
It was such a pleasure to talk with Ken (aka Dr. Ken Wilson). I’ve known Ken for a couple decades and I have seen how walking has become a vital and creative component of his life. He’s been very generous in sharing the sources of his walking knowledge, and introduced me to a range of…
Project Pedestrian 