A new report concludes that common ‘walkability’ measures don’t account for many barriers faced by pedestrians, such as environmental factors and policing.

According to Kea Wilson, “if cities truly want to be pedestrian-friendly, they need to think beyond the sidewalk, particularly in neighborhoods of color that face the steepest barriers.” However, while walkability scoring tools attempt to quantify the accessibility of neighborhoods for pedestrians, they leave out important factors. “That’s mostly because walkability algorithms tend to grade neighborhoods highly when they offer a lot of destinations within ‘walking distance,‘ but don’t closely scrutinize things like pedestrian crash rates, how long it takes to cross the road, the presence or absence of sidewalks, or even whether or not people you know, actually walk in a given neighborhood right now.”
A new analysis from the Urban Institute used five criteria to get a more accurate picture of actual walkability in Washington, D.C.: access to “essential destinations,” environmental quality factors such as air pollution and shade, infrastructure, policing, and road safety. “The study focused on data that could be sourced from public sources in hopes that other cities could easily replicate their work, but the researchers were forced to leave out certain critical and under-studied walking barriers, like rates of gender-based street harassment, accessibility for people with disabilities, and flood patterns in communities with poor drainage.”
“Still, the researchers say that’s all the more reason for city leaders to expand the kinds of data they collect on mobility barriers among various groups — and to think just as broadly about how improving one metric, like the prevalence of ‘self-enforcing’ street designs, could possibly improve other metrics, like decreasing the number of police stops.”
FULL STORY: Why ‘Walkability’ Scores Don’t Tell Us How Pedestrian-Friendly a City Is For Everyone

Four ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ Zoning Reforms
An excerpt from the latest book on zoning argues for four approaches to reform that can immediately improve land use regulation in the United States.

San Francisco Just Ended Single-Family Zoning
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to Tuesday to eliminate single-family zoning, but pro-development advocates say additional changes are needed to unleash a wave of construction.

Land Banking to Prevent Transit-Oriented Displacement in Los Angeles
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will implement a new land banking program to mitigate gentrification and displacement around future transit lines.

Washington Metro Faces Budget Deficit, Safety Issues
The capital’s public transit system, the country’s third-largest, has been plagued by a series of problems ranging from a looming fiscal deficit to train crashes and track fires.

San Francisco to Reconsider Inclusionary Zoning as Development Slows to a Crawl
Critics of inclusionary zoning frequently point to San Francisco as an example of what not to do. A sluggish year of development has some local politicians ready to reconsider the city’s program.

California Senate Committee Kills Freeway Expansion Bill
The proposed legislation would have prohibited new construction in historically underserved areas that often bear the burnt of the negative impacts of freeways.
City of Bothell
Town of San Anselmo
Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency (TPA)
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education
Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education
City of Apache Junction
City of Helena
Gallatin County, Montana
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.