A Study on the contextual variations of the concept of walkability

Abstract

Walkability provides a foundation for a sustainable city by reducing use of motor vehicles lead to reduce environmental hazards, increasing the healthiness of people, increasing social contacts and reduce economic loss. The effectiveness of walkability is linked with physical, socio-cultural,economic issues and the expectations and satisfaction of pedestrians. In order to increase the walking population there should be safety, comfort and convenience in the sidewalks. Present motorization and urbanization in Sri Lanken cities, resulting in reduced mobility and increasing thrown a challenge to the planners and decision makers in favor of conversion of motorized cities to walkable cities. So this research emphasize, Is walkability a quality that is commonly accepted by all and that can be achieved with a set of universally accepted parameters or is it a quality perceived depending upon the physical, socio-economic and cultural variables? If is it a varying quality, then does the varying perceived level of walkability have any relationship with the socio- demographic and economic state of individuals and groups? This research was designed in order to give answers to those questions. Data and information was collected through questionnaire and interview. The data was analyzed through content analysis and descriptive statistical method by using SPSS. Results show that respondents who are in same urban space although consume same conditions their acceptation on walkability different. When considering the acceptation over the different socio-cultural and economic groups all are accepted the safety,comfort and convenience differently execept Tamil in ethnic groups and Labour in employment groups. Although there are same parameters accepted in different urban spaces there were specific parameters to the location too. All most all the parameters are same as universally accepted parameters but there were several new. When consider the satisfaction on different walkability attributes in different urban spaces although four different urban spaces had four different improved walkability conditions and people coming from different socio-demographic and economic conditions the people’s perception on walkability was common. When increasing the age the dissatisfaction on considered attributes was gone up. With the increasing of the education level, the satisfaction on safety while walking goes up, satisfaction for the surface material is decrease. For the shade all over the socio demographic groups most of them are dissatisfied and with the increase of education level dissatisfaction goes up. With the increase of income level the satisfaction for the safety while walking is increasing.