What do you need to ensure that people walk on the footpaths? Footpaths have to be wide enough to accommodate all pedestrians, and they also have to be contiguous! If pedestrians need to get down from the footpath every now and then, they prefer to walk on the carriageway. And then unused footpaths are quickly occupied by dirt, garbage and other encroachment.
Riding on the excitement created by the Pedestrians’ Day, we appealed people to participate in our crowd-survey, to find out how contiguous our footpaths are. We found that among the surveyed footpaths-
- About 22% are less than 100m long. In other words, you need to get off after just 1 minute walk.
- About 38% are between 100-250 meters, or about ‘one block’ or ‘one bus stop’ long. Just about acceptable…
- About 40% are more than 250 meters long. These are the grand footpaths we should aspire for!
Other findings
Surface quality of the surveyed footpaths
Overall design and walking experience of surveyed footpaths
