Walkability Workshop

Thanks to David Brindley, the Health Promotion Specialist from the Public Health Team at Brighton & Hove Hove City Council for hosting an interesting and informative workshop on walkability, held at Hove Town Hall. The KESUE workshop was run by researchers from Queens University Belfast, who shared information from a study looking at ways to improve urban walkability. One major issue that the researchers addressed: existing route survey data uses the centre line of roads, not footways and paths so this had to be measured and mapped – walkability is about where people actually walk, rather than deriving it from maps based on where vehicles go (a familiar challenge to walkers who use Google maps).

Some other things that came up:

• Mobility issues are becoming more significant for an ageing population.
• Walking networks need to be winter-proof
• The costs of diversions

I’ve included a couple of key slides. The rest are available here.
Hat tip to Andrew Stuck of Rethinking Cities for his note on the workshop.