Evaluating Walkability as a Measure of Street Design Efficiency: Insights from Babylon, Iraq

Abstract

Walkability emerges as an important efficiency measure in street design and can be interpreted based on its relevance and effectiveness of cities in promoting pedestrian mobility and sustainability. The current study attempts to find out the walkability of Al Jamiya Street in Babylon, Iraq, through Morphological Evaluation and Pedestrian Observation method conducted on a random sample of 50 pedestrians. The results show an enormous gap between design and service delivery efficiency. The street has enough sidewalks, but over-crowding by vendors and absence of proper crossing points mar its efficiency. More alarmingly, almost complete absence of something as natural as shade and trees almost ensures that walking during summer season is impossible; and all pedestrians agreed to this observation. The current problem and future studies section concludes that designing walkability in hot and arid climatic conditions is strongly interconnected and cannot be provided by just designing wider pavement but requires heavy emphasis upon climatic comfort and pedestrian priority management practices.