The Importance of Walkability

The Sindh Government has just launched the Red Bus service. Also known as the BRT service, there are a lot of hopes linked with this newest project. This will be the latest in a long-line of public works in the city aimed at tackling the transport issue in Pakistan’s biggest city. 

Though an encouraging move, especially in light of the recent price-hikes in petrol since march of this year, there are fears that it might fall by the wayside like the many other such projects started in the city. Since the rise of automobiles, cities have developed keeping the idea of motorized transport in mind. 

People lived, and still live in, certain areas of the city. Schools, grocery stores, and other amenities would be closer to these residential areas. Then there would be the commercial sectors of the city. These would be where most of the businesses would be conducted in the city. Most people lived in the residential areas and commuted to work or even to study across the city. The average commute in 2019 for most of the US, for example, was approximately an hour (if you count both the commute to and from work). 

However, the modern era has us evolving how we live towards becoming more convivial and health-focused. This is not exactly a new thing, as the field of urban-studies has been putting forward these notions for more than eight decades now. For example, the idea of walkability was introduced by Jane Jacobs in her work for Urban-Studies in the 1960s. 

But what exactly is walkability? How do cities increase their walkability, and what can we do to make it so that our urban centers become more pedestrian friendly?

What is Walkability?

The extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area.

Walkability is based around the concept of making urban areas something more than just concrete corridors for automobile transport. The idea is making urban-spaces complete living spaces with all of the amenities of a community available to them through foot-traffic as much as possible. Unfortunately, it does not mean simply having over-head bridges to enable pedestrians to cross roads without being hit. 

The simple fact is that even these bridges are not actually viable ways of solving this problem since they are very ablist and focused towards younger people, older people finding it much harder to climb the steps to traverse these and it is a common site to see older women ignore these bridges and braving the traffic and possibly getting hut just to not climb these steps. But I digress. Walkability involves changes in a city’s physical design as well as social engineering and various other factors to contribute towards a better living experience of an urban city. 

Needless to say, Karachi is one of the least walkable cities in the world, and considering that the average man can not afford their commutes-it is the need of the hour. 

Functional Mix means the distances between where people live and where they have to be. Essentially, there are a few places that people need to be everyday. These are work, school, or the grocery store. If these are reachable for you through means of micro-mobility than it means that the area you live in has a good functional mix. Now the basis of Functional Mix is population density, since the ratio of amenities to area where people live has to be efficient. And so, it makes sense that urban centers with high-rises and other high-density residential centers are to be the center of development rather than an afterthought.

Here are some examples of centers that have a good functional mix that makes them good for their residents as well as good for any tourists that come by. So it is not really a surprise that the best tourist destinations are also the most walkable, as we discuss in the next topic. 

Examples of Walkable Cities

Often compared to an open-air museum, Florence is one of the most walkable cities on the planet. Since most of the automobile traffic only consists of a few residents and taxis and bus services, Florence is made for pedestrian traffic. How is it so walkable, because even though there is a lack of noxious traffic to make the walking experience  bad for most people, there is still the fact that walking a lot is also tiring. Well, the fact is, Florence has developed to conserve it’s walkability. There are amenities in the traffic-centers like cafes, bars, and restaurants to cater to the masses moving on foot across the city. 

The Manhatten area of New York is one of the most walkable areas in the US. Since most of Europe is small and easily traversable via foot (talking about most urban centers) the US contrasts this with cities made for the car. It is next to impossible to not have a car in the US as most of the country is made for automobile traffic in mind. A nice contrast to this is Manhatten which is one of the best areas for a pedestrian in the entire country. But what makes this place so walkable? Mainly it has to do with the city’s catering to foot-traffic. 

Pedestrianized areas like Times Square make for an attractive spot for those on foot whilst most of the area is easy to navigate for pedestrians with numbered streets and organized areas. 

In Conclusion

Making an already developed city more walkable is a difficult task. However, there are a few ways that can make Karachi a much more walkable city than it is. The plan has to be long-term in nature and has to be made in conjunction with the current infrastructure in place. The first thing that can be changed is moving where the schools are allowed to open. Private schools pop up in various areas of the city and kids have to go through long commutes to get to where they have to go. Placing these in community centers would increase the functional mix of a place. 

Another thing is the provision of remote health services and going towards remote work models. This can make your work be at your home, increasing productivity as well as reducing commuting times for other things.