Where Will People Walk? Pedestrian use and network connectivity in Wallingford in Seattle, and Crossroads in Bellevue, Washington

 

Saxen, David.

 

Broadly stated, the goal of this research is to understand and describe the cumulative effects of urban and suburban development patterns on personal mobility, as well as the changing definition, use, and role of the public realm. Specifically, it attempts to document the differences in pedestrian behavior and use between urban and suburban areas and discuss how the disparate forms and circulation systems contribute to these differences. The basic hypothesis being tested is that the higher the level of pedestrian network connectivity, the higher the percentage of pedestrian trips will be.

This thesis supplements a previous study that compared physical characteristics of urban and suburban neighborhoods to test a proposed concept called 'pedestrian network connectivity.' It is intended to describe the general quality of pedestrian system in a neighborhood using characteristics that are physically measurable, such as block size and length of sidewalk.

The same two neighborhoods used in the previous study, Wallingford in Seattle and Crossroads in Bellevue, were used for this research. A phenomenological method of inquiry, involving the typological classification of observable facts and events, was used. The number of people walking between comparable locations in the two neighborhoods was systematically counted and used to compare pedestrian use to the pedestrian network connectivity measures describing the physical supportiveness of their respective circulation systems.

The findings suggest a strong relationship exists between pedestrian use and the combined measures of pedestrian network connectivity previously established for Wallingford and Crossroads. There was no clear conclusion was on which of the connectivity variables are most indicative of pedestrian use.