Measuring the Impact of Street Network Configuration on the Accessibility to People and Walking Attractors

M. Bielik (), R. König, S. Schneider and T. Varoudis
Additional contact information
M. Bielik: Bauhaus Universät Weimar
R. König: ETH Zürich
S. Schneider: Bauhaus Universät Weimar
T. Varoudis: University College London

Networks and Spatial Economics, 2018, vol. 18, issue 3, No 12, 657-676

Abstract: Abstract A common approach to evaluating the quality of urban environments in terms of walkability is to measure the accessibility of walking attractors. For this purpose, the information on street network configuration and distribution of walking attractors is required. However, in the early planning stages when not all the necessary data on land use allocation is available, or if the knowledge about the walkability impact of the pure street network configuration is required, this approach is of little use. By addressing this deficiency, we developed method for predicting the accessibility of walking attractors only by using the information on the street network configuration. This method is based on the hypothesis that street network configuration influences how people move through space, and this in turn affects the allocation and accessibility of walking attractors. We empirically test this hypothesis in a case study of Weimar, Germany and found that street network configuration alone was significant and the strongest predictor of AWA. We show how street network influences the distribution of people in terms of pedestrian movement flows and that the access to these movement flows is highly correlated to the neighbourhood walkability. This highlights the importance of urban structure as an interface for social interaction and suggests the positive effect of social proximity on the quality of environment.

Keywords: Street network; Centrality; Accessibility; Walkability; Walk Score (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11067-018-9426-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:netspa:v:18:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11067-018-9426-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11067/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11067-018-9426-x

Access Statistics for this article

Networks and Spatial Economics is currently edited by Terry L. Friesz

More articles in Networks and Spatial Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().