Benefits of a Walkable Community
Enhancing pedestrian infrastructure and increasing the walkability of a community generates multiple significant benefits.
1) Economic Benefits - The Local Government Commission Center for Livable Communities has identified several clear economic connections with walkable environments.
Walkability increases property values. People are willing to pay a premium to live where it is walkable. This includes not just the presence of sidewalks but also reductions in traffic speeds, noise and vehicle generated air pollution. Studies cited by the Local Government Commission and the Center for Livable Communities indicate the reduction in traffic speeds alone can increase the value of property by 15-20%.
Walkability is good for retail sales. Studies on congestion in booming business centers are demonstrating that too much traffic congestion can also gridlock economic development. Experience in downtown renewal suggests there are correlations between pedestrian improvements and new business development, drops in vacancy rate, and increases in commercial tax revenues. The compatibility of the contemporary knowledge driven and service oriented economy with a walkable mix of downtown amenities is well established nationwide because networking thrives on accessibility, interactivity and synergistic creativity. Walkability itself creates access, opportunities for interaction, and physical and mental regeneration and integration. Dan Burden in his publication Street Design Guidelines for Healthy Neighborhoods points out that walkable streets are successful streets which enable people to visit retail stores and service centers with security, convenience, efficiency, association comfort and welcome.
Walkability is a tourist magnet. When communities are developed and redeveloped as compact, pedestrian friendly centers, the attractiveness and appeal created are inviting to visitors. Instead of demonstrating preference for shopping and visiting eating establishments in auto-malls, visitors vote with their feet by visiting walkable locations which are interactive and express local color and character.
2) Accessibility Benefits – A walkable community creates choices which people can use to assist them to travel efficiently to destinations such as home, workplaces, school/university, shopping and recreation areas and transit stops. With a walkable environment, people can more readily choose a walking option to reach destinations that are only short distances away. Walking creates more direct access and reduced time and resources utilized in parking, driving and maintaining a vehicle; it can also help to maintain and improve one’s fitness. If even a modest percentage of residents substitute walking on some occasions, this will reduce motorized vehicle congestion and contribute to overall traffic mobility while helping to reduce idling and pollution in the City’s air.
3) Sense of Community – When people walk, the resulting interactions with and among other persons and with the natural environment can help enhance one’s sense of community. Safe, connective walking areas also put children and adults in closer touch with where they live and allow them to use streets and public areas for socialization and recreation as well as access to destinations.
4) Safety Benefits – Walkable school environments contribute to student safety. Development of city-wide connective and comprehensive pedestrian facilities as well as increasing education and enforcement activities can help reduce injuries and fatalities.
5) Quality of Life Benefits – When persons are able to have choices in modes of travel and can choose walking and biking over other modes, there is a perceived improvement in quality of life. Throughout the nation, departments of transportation report that residents place a high value on the availability of sidewalks and walking paths. For many people today it does not even occur to them that there are choices. This needs to change.
6) Health and Fitness Benefits – There is a large body of documented evidence that walking provides health benefits through maintenance of fitness and prevention or reduction of overweight/obesity and other diseases which result from auto-centered sedentary lifestyles.
7) Environmental Benefits – Continued increases in the City's walking population in place of motorized travel will contribute to the reduction in air pollution levels. Present levels create assaults on immune systems, especially in youth and older adults and foster breathing illnesses and disorders in persons of all ages. In addition, when auto emissions are mixed with emissions from buildings and power plants such conditions can create toxic air conditions which are damaging to all forms of life.
8) Disaster Preparedness Benefits – Mass evacuations on-foot can become the only available means for persons responding quickly to natural disasters, explosions or other emergency events. Pedestrian facilities may become the most suitable means for localized mass evacuations especially when vehicle travel may be dysfunctional or restricted. Having a pedestrian infrastructure in place which has been planned for expediting pedestrian movement when a mass evacuation might be needed can provide the most reliable and sustainable mode of transportation in coping with major incidents.
Priorities in a Walkable Community
A pedestrian-friendly environment is desirable throughout the City. But it is especially important in residential areas, around commercial centers and near community facilities such as schools, libraries, parks, event centers, and public service centers such as the court house, the municipal centers and public agencies. Each of these destinations needs to be accessible by commonly used routes which are pedestrian-transit-bicycle friendly – not simply in terms of the appeal of the destination but in terms of attractiveness in the routes which are utilized to access them. These routes need to be well connected from multiple directions and perceived as safe. To address variations in weather and topography, and the need for longer distance access by pedestrians, it is important that connector pedestrian routes also be interfaced with transit support.
In order to make a community more pedestrian friendly, or walkable, there are several recognized priorities for generating a safe, attractive, multi-modal environment. Several recommendations from the Federal Highways Administration are listed as follows.
Street Design
Focus on…
Pedestrian Route Connectivity
Increasing pedestrian route connectivity creates a safer, more pedestrian friendly street system by…
Site Design Improvements
Land Use Improvements
Access Management Improvements
Access management can work in favor of pedestrians within the context of other planning including:
In the year 2000 the West Virginia Department of Highways assessed the mode of travel for persons going to work (and classes) and reported that Morgantown has the highest percentage of persons walking of any city in the state. The state average percentage of persons walking to work was 2.5%, compared to 16.8% in Morgantown.
This high percentage of walkers who commute is joined by other walkers who walk for exercise. In April 2008, Prevention Magazine listed Morgantown as one of the best walking cities in the United States in terms of having the greatest percentage of its population who walk for exercise.
Both statistical recognitions are evidence that people in Morgantown want to walk. The development of the rail-trail system has been a boon to pedestrians in the community. However, other existing conditions in pedestrian infrastructure put pedestrians at risk for injury and discourage many others from ever joining the ranks of pedestrian commuters, recreational walkers and persons willing to walk to schools, public services, and events. Examples of poor pedestrian infrastructure include:
Street Design - In December 2007 and March 2008 the Morgantown City Council and the Greater Morgantown MPO Policy Board adopted a “Complete the Streets” policy (see Appendix D) which supports the indispensability of “Complete Street” design to address the needs of the total population – including transit riders, bicyclists, pedestrians, and vehicle operators. This action is an important step for the future. At present, however, most street designs in the residential and commercial areas of Morgantown developed between 1940 and 1990.
Street design influenced by the Second World War and post war development attitudes lacked pedestrian facilities, had lanes which were difficult to cross, encouraged higher vehicle speeds, and often included complex intersections that created long delays and provided little protection for pedestrians.
High speed one-way traffic conversions were created to move growing volumes of traffic in central city areas after tram and trolley services were discontinued and before construction of interstates and by-passes were established. The speed of traffic in both residential and commercial areas poses increasing safety concerns for pedestrian uses of streets. It also diminishes quality of life, independence, and sense of community, especially for children and older adults.
Lower design speed areas, such as South Park, were achieved early in the 20th Century by incorporating such features as:
Pedestrians living in areas such as South Park, Greenmont, Chancery Hill and sections of Woodburn, Wiles Hill, First Ward and Evansdale are able to walk and cross streets more safely because of the original street design involved.
Connectivity - With the exception of areas within older residential sections of the City, many areas do not connect well for pedestrians with other areas nor with many public services or event centers. For example, citizens living near Dorsey Avenue do not have continuous sidewalk access to and from several schools nor to the downtown. Willowdale Road recently received a new sidewalk but connecting sections are still missing between it and adjacent neighborhoods.
The three year Greater Morgantown MPO Regional Transportation planning process identified city-oriented pedestrian priorities in its Non-Motorized System Improvement Priorities. These priorities for pedestrian infrastructure improvement are presented in Appendix E of this Plan and were also identified once again in the preparation process for this Plan. An example of such repeated need is the lack of sidewalks along Van Voorhis Road which creates a pedestrian disconnection for university students living in housing in the vicinity of the road as well as persons living on South View, West View, and other adjacent residential developments. Serious pedestrian accidents have occurred on Van Voorhis primarily because the road is a narrow two-lane road with high speed traffic and without shoulders or sidewalks.
There are other forms of pedestrian disconnection within established neighborhoods in the City. For example, the Creative Arts Center and the Coliseum are inaccessible by sidewalk from many areas of Suncrest as is the Suncrest Middle School, which might otherwise be walkable for many of its students. Also sidewalks are not included along Route 7 in Sabraton. This disconnection has a negative impact on pedestrian travel to commercial areas, churches, and other centers in the Sabraton area, and to transit bus service.
The recent placement of sidewalks on Collins Ferry Road has completed a sidewalk connection along the road which now serves as a safer corridor for children walking to and from school buses as well as persons in the area desiring to walk to work on Collins Ferry Road or to accessible locations on University Ave. The new sidewalk on Falling Run Road will improve the lack of sufficient pedestrian connection between the Highland Park and Van Gilder areas with the central campus and the downtown area.
Lack of connectivity limits the ability to walk safely along connector streets in particular. It also increases exposure time to vehicles on roads and discourages walking as a means of traveling to specific destinations. Unfortunately, there remain multiple disconnections in sidewalks throughout Morgantown. Most are caused by the failure to build pedestrian infrastructure as the City has grown within its boundaries. Other gaps have evolved from a lack of maintenance and timely repair.
Site Design – Many developments in Morgantown do not provide clear and convenient access for pedestrians. Pedestrians often have to dodge motor vehicles in gaining access to malls, stores, health centers and other destinations where there have not been clear standards or plans for pedestrian movement to and from the building. For example, the intersection of Chestnut Ridge and Van Voorhis is very hazardous to pedestrians. When pedestrians walk in front of parking lots and driveways in order to continue on a route, pedestrians often have to dodge motorists unshielded by adequate width in the sidewalk, a presence of street furniture, trees or landscaping and have to deal with potential conflicts between themselves and motorists. Many driveways along a street without proper pedestrian protective design can be a challenging walking environment, especially for persons with disabilities.
One recent exception to this type of difficulty is represented in the construction of the facility housing Medical Express on South University Ave. In this development plan the parking areas are landscaped and located at a distance from the sidewalk area along South University Ave. Other examples are in the construction of two large multi-family complexes in Sunnyside where the sidewalks have been separated from the parking and living areas by landscaping, trees or low retaining walls.
Land Use – With the post World War II ascendance of the automobile as the dominant consideration in community planning, land use and zoning practices became oriented toward single usage and segregation of land into uses such as commercial areas and employment areas, schools, and residential areas. Commercial development became concentrated in strip malls and in other structures with large parking areas located along connector and arterial roadways. These busy roads are difficult for pedestrians to cross and to safely navigate in general. Intersections are especially difficult for pedestrians to cross due to the size and large numbers of turning vehicles.
Morgantown has been organized in a similar way and has become even more segregated in single use patterns with the demise of the small neighborhood grocery stores and other neighborhood small commercial establishments. The lack of availability of safe crosswalks on nearly every arterial road in Morgantown has become a major problem for local residents as well as University visitors to the City.
To counter-balance this trend and to create an environment in which there can be more mixed-use zoning and less dependency on automobiles for each commercial and social transaction, the City of Morgantown has made changes in its zoning code as permitted by revisions in the State planning legislation in 2004. Other plans to progress toward reducing longer travel distances are: promoting higher mixed use residential density in the Sunnyside and riverfront areas; supporting neighborhood transit services; increasing the number of parks in neighborhoods; and the establishing pedestrian infrastructure planning through the work of the MPO and the forming of a Municipal Pedestrian Safety Board. Additional information on these latter two steps is presented in the background section which follows.