Research in the last ten years has linked walkability, improved pedestrian environments, mixed-use development, and even older housing stock—a proxy for neighborhoods built for walking as opposed to driving—with improved public health measures related to weight. A new longitudinal study from McGill University is the first to study changes in body mass index over a relatively long time period as a function of walkability.
walkability
Can parking lot capacity limit transit station capacity?
At some Washington Metro stations, poor walking and biking connections to transit mean that a large percentage of riders drive to the access transit. When the parking lots fill up in the morning, the capacity of the parking lot effectively limits the capacity of the transit station.
Growing public interest in walkable communities, but public sector decision-makers still lag behind
Walkscore, the first website to offer easy-to-use walkability ratings for cities, neighborhoods, and individual properties now has some competition. Walkability, a rating system released this month targets private businesses, particularly those in the marketing, social networking, and real estate sectors.
New accessibility tools available from Walk Score
For agencies that want to address the land use-transportation connection, Walk Score now provides a new form of accessibility measure, as well as data to help measure trends over time. The firm is offering a way to measure the depth of choices of destinations such as groceries or parks, in a platform called ChoiceMaps.
Walk this Way: The Economic Promise of Walkable Places in Metropolitan Washington, D.C. (Brookings, 2012)
An economic analysis of a sample of neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area using walkability measures, this study offer useful insights for a diverse set of interests, including lenders, developers, economic planning professionals, as well as those interested in the economic healthy of cities.