Street Mobility Project Toolkit: Measuring the Effects of Busy Roads on Local People

Busy roads carrying large volumes of motor vehicles can deter people from walking along them or crossing on foot, and so interfere with individuals’ ability to access the goods, services, and people they need for a healthy life (often called ‘community severance’ or the ‘barrier effect’). This also reduces the amenity value of streets as social spaces. Despite this, there has been a lack of tools to identify, assess, and study community severance caused by busy roads. This project developed a suite of tools to assess and value the negative effects of busy roads on local residents. The tools developed include: participatory mapping - engaging local residents and community members to provide qualitative data on the locality and their relationship with it; a health and neighbourhood mobility survey - to collect data from a random sample of local residents on their perceptions of walking around their area, and on their health and mental wellbeing; a video survey - to determine pedestrian and motorised traffic flows and pedestrian crossing behaviours; spatial analysis - to develop a sophisticated walkability map; and a stated preference survey - to value the disbenefits of community severance. The authors also used existing tools, including street audits (to assess the quality of the pedestrian environment) and space syntax (a specialised form of spatial analysis). All these tools were tested in four case study areas: two in London, one in Southend-on-Sea, and one in Birmingham. Overall the suite of tools is reliable for assessing community severance in urban areas. The toolkit (www.ucl.ac.uk/street-mobility/toolkit) is available online for use by local communities, practitioners, and researchers.

• Record URL:
  http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1542993/1/Mindell_Street_Mobility_Project_Toolkit_updated.pdf
• Record URL:
  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/street-mobility/toolkit
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  University College London

  London,   United Kingdom 

  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Great Britain)

  ,    

  Arts & Humanities Research Council

  ,    

  Economic & Social Research Council

  ,    
• Publication Date: 2017-3

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 53p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Evaluation and assessment; Mapping; Mobility; Neighborhoods; Pedestrians; Quality of life; Roads; Spatial analysis; Surveys; Traffic flow; Urban areas; Walkability
• Geographic Terms: Birmingham (England); London (England); Southend-on-Sea (England)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01646031
• Record Type: Publication
• Contract Numbers: EP/KO37323/1
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 30 2017 1:39PM