Attract or repel: how street features shape pedestrians’ leisure walks in cities

Figures & data

Table 1. Factors influencing pedestrian route choice based on empirical studies.

Study	Factors affecting pedestrian route choice
Seneviratne and Morrall (1985)	Distance, habitual behaviour, route attraction, number of crossings, degree of crowding, weather protection, noise, security
Borst et al. (2009)	Distance, walking difficulty, aesthetics, social factors
Brown et al. (2007)	Social milieu, sidewalk amenities and activities, building attractiveness, personal safety
Muraleetharan and Hagiwara (2007)	Level Of Service (LOS) on walkways and at crosswalks, distance, number of turns
Weinstein Agrawal, Schlossberg, and Irvin (2008)	Distance, safety, street connectivity
Cho, Rodríguez, and Khattak (2009)	Land use, sidewalk width, sidewalk continuity, trash bins, crossing aids, density, road density
Guo (2009); Guo and Ferreira (2008)	Retail and open space, sidewalk width, street crossings, topography

Table 2. Average Walk Score®. analysis for N = 26 street segments included in the study area.

Street Name	Walk Score®
1 Allenby	99
2 King George	97
3 Ben Tsiyon Boulevard	98
4 Rothschild Boulevard	99
5 Maze	97
6 Ahad Ha’Am	98
7 Ben Zakai	99
8 Karl Netter	99
9 Yavne	97
10 Montefiore	95
11 Nachmani	97
12 Balfour	99
13 George Eliot	97
14 Yosef ha-Nasi	97
15 HaAvoda	98
16 Bar IIlan	96
17 Rashi	98
18 Borochov	98
19 Haim Ve’elisha	95
20 Melchett	97
21 Michal	93
22 Shienkin	97
23 Brenner	98
24 Balfour	99
25 Merkas Ba’alei Melaha	91
26 Perets Hayut	98
Mean Walk Score®	97.15

Figure 1. A mapping showing the spatial distribution of participants’ walking routes (retrieved from the GPS app recording) from the origin to the destination within the study area. The origin and destination pair specifically chosen for the leisure walk (fixed across participants) is indicated by a circle on the map.

Table 3. An overview of the post-walk survey structure. Items are categorized by topic and response scale.

Item	Topic	Item	Response scale
1	Path familiarity	How familiar are you with the walking path you chose?	1–6 Likert scale (1) Not familiar (6) Highly familiar
2	Hierarchy of walking considerations	What were the three most important considerations that affected your choice of walking path during the leisure walk you have just concluded?	Response options: Crowdedness Noise, Cyclists, Air pollution Distance, Points of interest Sidewalk width, Crossings Parks, Street view, Signage Slope, Sunlight, Safety
3–5		Why was [x]* an important consideration for your choice of walking path? For each of the three factors selected, participants were asked to answer this question	Unstructured response
6–14	Subjective perception of walking path	I walked in the path I perceived to be the/has the.: Shortest Fastest Has the most coffee shops and stores Is the least crowded Is the least noisy Is the most shaded Has the least number of barriers and obstacles Has the widest sidewalks the safest and has a separate lane for cyclists	1–3 Likert scale ‘Disagree’,,”Neutral,”and ‘Agree’.

Figure 2. An overview of the streets traversed by participants across the five walking paths in the real-world field study (images captured from Google Street View).

Figure 3. Spatial analysis of the study area augmented with participants’ walking paths.

Table 4. The distribution of participants’ choice of walking route showing the % of participants who walked in each of the five routes (A-E).

	Route A	Route B	Route D	Route C	Route E
Estimated trip length (based on Google Maps, in km)	1.7	1.6	1.7	2.1	2.2
Estimated trip duration (based on Google Maps, in min)	22	20	21	27	26
Actual average duration of trip (for each route) by participants (in min)	120	89	100	79	110
Number of turns (based on Google)	3	4	6	7	13
% of participants who walked in route}	50%	25%	4.5%	16%	4.5%

Table 5. Participants’ choice (in %) of first, second and third most important walking considerations, sampled as part of the post-walk survey. Items that were not chosen are not mentioned in this table.

	1^st consideration	2^nd consideration	3^rd consideration
Crowdedness	11.3	22.7	20.4
Noise	2.7	4.5	25
Cyclists	11.3	9.0	27.2
Air pollution	2.2	11.3	15.9
Distance	9.09	11.3	2.2
Points of Interest	27.2	22.7	4.5
Sidewalk width	18.1	9.0	0
Crossings	0	2.2	2.2
Parks	18.1	6.	2.2

Table 6. Selected statements by participants in response to items 3–5 in the post-walk survey (‘Why was [x]* an important consideration for your choice of walking path?’). Participants unstructured responses were manually classified as either ‘avoidance’ or ‘attraction’ statements.

Street feature	Avoidance statements	Attraction statement
Crowdedness	‘Fridays are the worst, I just wanted to stay clear of the crowds, so I preferred to walk on Rothschild instead of Allenby’	‘I like to walk in busy streets and walk amongst many people, so I chose to walk along Allenby and King George’
Noise	‘The traffic noise along King George Street, especially the buses is terrible, I tried to walk along quieter streets” “I tried to avoid the traffic and people noise along the main streets, its unbearable’	‘I preferred to go through the Gan Meir (park), it’s much more quiet, I like the feeling of nature’
Distance	‘I was wearing heels and my legs were killing me, I preferred to walk on King George since it was the shortest in my mind’	I wanted to relax, so I took the longest path which I believed to be Through the boulevards”.
POI	‘I wanted to avoid the shops on King George and Dizengof, It’s not my cup of tea…. So Ipreferred to walk through Tsharnehovsky which is less commercial’‘	‘Because it’s a Friday, I had allot of time so I wanted to do some shopping … that’s why I chose to walk along King George and Dizengof’.
Sidewalks width	‘I wanted to walk along the wider streets, so the stroller can pass through. It did not happen, the streets are packed with people and parked cars, I had to go down the sidewalk and into the traffic lanes several times’	‘I wanted to avoid the blocked sidewalks in the regular streets, so I walked on the boulevard where its more spacious’
Crossings	“I wanted to avoid red light crossings, so I walked straight on Allenby. I didn’t want to slow down”.	N/A
Parks	‘I wanted to go through the park but I hate the dog walkers in Gan Meir, It’s loud and scary, especially when I’m with my baby in the stroller. I went through Kikar Habima, it's also nice and feels safer’.	‘I wanted to go through Gan Meir, my dog’s favourite hangout place’..

Figure 4. % of participants’ unstructured responses classified as ‘avoidance’ or ‘attraction’ statements. Responses are for items 3–5 in the post-walk survey, answering the question: ‘Why was [x]* an important consideration for your choice of walking path?’.

Figure 5. Participants’ agreement with statements regarding their chosen walking path. Agreement levels were measured on a 3-point Likert scale (agree, disagree, neutral) for various statements, such as the path being the shortest, fastest, having the most coffee shops and stores, least crowded, least noisy, most shaded, least number of barriers, widest sidewalks, and separation from cyclists.

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