Environmental Correlates That Provide Walkability Cues for Tourists: An Analysis Based on Walking Decision Narrations

Tourists and others who are unfamiliar with an environment may be sensitive to environmental cues when choosing their walking routes. In this study, we combined inductive and deductive approaches to evaluate walkability cues. We defined a set of walkability variables by analyzing the narratives of participants, who walked along one of 19 diverse routes. These cues were then supplemented with environmental and walkability variables from Mehrabian and Russel scales (Russel et al., 1981) and SPACES (Pikora, 2003), resulting in a total of 48 descriptors. Using the 48 descriptors, 60 diverse photos of streetscape views were rated, and we identified 14 relevant walkability correlates. Using principal component analysis, we identified six components that best predicted walking decisions: safety from traffic, comfort of walking area, environmental appearance, activity potential, shade and exploration. These results suggest that real walkers make more finely grained walking judgments than those measured by current, conceptualized walkability scales.

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Supplemental Notes:
- Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications from Author, Article title, journal issue, copyrightowner, year.
Authors:
- Samarasekara, Ganga N
- Fukahori, Kiyotaka
- Kubota, Yoichi
Publication Date: 2011-7

Language

English

Media Info

Media Type: Print
Features: Figures; References; Tables;
Pagination: pp 501-524
Serial:
- Environment and Behavior
- Volume: 43
- Issue Number: 4
- Publisher: Sage Publications, Incorporated
- ISSN: 0013-9165
- EISSN: 1552-390X
- Serial URL: http://eab.sagepub.com/

Subject/Index Terms

TRT Terms: Built environment; Data collection; Image analysis; Landscape design; Pedestrian movement; Pedestrians; Tourists; Walkability
Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; I70: Traffic and Transport;

Filing Info

Accession Number: 01354526
Record Type: Publication
Files: TRIS
Created Date: Oct 12 2011 12:16PM