Walk Appeal promises to be a major new tool for understanding and building walkable places, and it explains several things that were heretofore either contradictory or mysterious. It begins with the assertion that the quarter-mile radius (or 5-minute walk,) which has been held up for a century as the distance Americans will walk before driving, is actually a myth.
Both images below are at the same scale, and the yellow dashed line is a quarter-mile radius. On the left is a power center. As we all know, if you're at Best Buy and need to pick something up at Old Navy, there's no way you're walking from one store to another. Instead, you get in your car and drive as close as possible to the Old Navy front door. You'll even wait for a parking space to open up instead of driving to an open space just a few spaces away… not because you're lazy, but because it's such a terrible walking experience.
The image on the right is Rome. The circles are centered on the Piazza del Popolo (North is to the left) and the Green radius goes through the Vittorio Emanuele on the right. People regularly walk that far and then keep on walking without ever thinking of driving.
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6 comments:
but to have walk-appeal, you need a place to walk to. I would love to walk around a downtown full of shops and restaurants. I would NOT like to walk around a bunch of section 8 housing.
People are so lazy they have to put moving walk ways in air ports. People can't walk from one plane to another.
Really interesting article, thanks for posting it.
I live in Delmar and within a mile and a half of the Food Lion shopping center. I have walked and biked there, and it's not a bad experience until you have to cross the highway or enter the shopping center off Line Rd.
Not sure what can be done about that but it would be nice if future development was more pedestrian and bike friendly.
Lewes, DE is a great example of a town that has embraced the concept.
Have you ever noticed how many obese people live in this town? Walk thru Walmart and you will see them in scooters. I doubt they would be able to walk around downtown.
Anon 3:25pm is one of those amazing people that knows the illness of others just by looking at them.
Yeah, they smoke cigs, eat greasy fast food, drink and never exercise 8:21.
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