Validating Urban Design Measures

Focusing on the street level experience, Ewing et al. (2005, 2006) developed measurement protocols for nine urban design qualities cited in the literature—imageability, enclosure, human scale, transparency, complexity, coherence, linkage, legibility, and tidiness. The first five were successfully operationalized. This paper builds on earlier research to, for the first time, validate the urban design measures against pedestrian counts on 588 block faces in New York City. An effort is made to distinguish which measures, if any, influence levels of pedestrian activity after controlling for the “D” variables: development density, land use diversity, street network design, destination accessibility, distance to transit, and demographics. The urban design quality of transparency, related to windows overlooking the street, continuous building facades forming a street wall, and active street frontage, proves to have more explanatory power than any other D variable.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF10 Pedestrians.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Ewing, Reid
  • Connors, Mark B
  • Goates, Jonathan P
  • Hajrasouliha, Amir
  • Neckerman, Kathy
  • Nelson, Arthur C
  • Greene, William
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Demographics; Highway design; Land use; Pedestrian counts; Population density; Public transit; Structural design; Urban design; Walking
• Geographic Terms: New York (New York)
• Subject Areas: Design; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; I20: Design and Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01473374
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-1662
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 21 2013 9:10AM