The Effects of Pedestrian Environments on Walking Behaviors and Perception of Pedestrian Safety

Byoung-Suk Kweon, Jody Rosenblatt-Naderi, Christopher D. Ellis, Woo-Hwa Shin and Blair H. Danies
Additional contact information
Byoung-Suk Kweon: Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Jody Rosenblatt-Naderi: Department of Landscape Architecture, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, USA
Christopher D. Ellis: Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Woo-Hwa Shin: Daegu Gyeongbuk Development Institute, Daegu 42447, Korea
Blair H. Danies: Low Impact Development Center, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: We investigated the effects of pedestrian environments on parents’ walking behavior, their perception of pedestrian safety, and their willingness to let their children walk to school. This study was a simulated walking environment experiment that created six different pedestrian conditions using sidewalks, landscape buffers, and street trees. We used within subjects design where participants were exposed to all six simulated conditions. Participants were 26 parents with elementary school children. Sidewalks, buffer strips, and street trees affected parents’ decisions to: walk themselves; let their children walk to school; evaluate their perception whether the simulated environment was safe for walking. We found that the design of pedestrian environments does affect people’s perceptions of pedestrian safety and their willingness to walk. The presence of a sidewalk, buffer strip, and street trees affected parents’ decision to walk, their willingness to let their children walk to school and perceived the pedestrian environment as safer for walking. The effects of trees on parents’ walking and perception of pedestrian safety are greater when there is a wide buffer rather than a narrow buffer. It was found that parents are more cautious about their children’s walking environments and safety than their own.

Keywords: pedestrian environments; children; sidewalks; landscape buffers; street trees; commute routes; active transportation; walking; perception of pedestrian safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8728/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8728/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8728-:d:608564

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().