Transforming Auto – Oriented Communities to Walkable Neighborhoods

...

resident’s quality of life i.e. emotionally, mentally and spiritually wellbeing.

In this paper, I compared two neighborhoods. One is pre-world war II development which is compact development and another is post war II development which is sub urban kind of development. From this two case studies, I will show the areas with low and high walking. My questions for this paper is: What factors impact on walking and reasons behind it? To increase more walking in the neighborhoods what changes should be needed at street level? How to transform auto oriented communities into walkable neighborhoods? I will answer this questions in depth by comparing both neighborhoods. Due to time limitation, I have used the George Schroeder (a Master’s student of San Jose State University) thesis to find my answers. My research questions are similar to the work done by this author in his paper.

The paper is organized as follows. Following the introductory section, section 2 describes the literature study and different methods followed by various authors. Section 3 explains the details and analysis of study area and recommendations. Section 4 discuss about the analysis and lessons learnt. Section 5 establishes the conclusion.

2. LITERATURE STUDY:

There are ten reasons to support walkable neighborhoods. It develops the community by bringing people to one place to interact each other’s and it converts common space into public space for people to use. It brings Equity like access to streets for elder, young and disabled people. It encourages diversity of buildings, people of all financial backgrounds brings to one place to interact. It encourages the physical activity of the residents by encouraging more walking and walking for shorter trips. Reduces the construction costs of building new roads, car accidents and etc. communities will be more sustainable. It reduces the number of accidents caused to pedestrians and carries more safety. It makes the neighborhood more beauty and dignity at the same time. And finally people of different generations meet and share their experiences (Jeff, 2012).

There are different built environment impacts on walking. They are dwelling unit density, mixed land uses, pedestrian oriented designs, and non built environmental which relates with the mental conditions of individuals (SCHROEDER, 2010). Depending on persons walking attitude, there are both built and social environmental factors which impacts on walking (Kenneth Joh, 2012).

Similar study has been done on transforming the community into more walkable i.e. “Retrofitting the Suburbs to Increase Walking: Evidence from a Land-use- Travel Study”. The aim of this paper is to identify the travel behavior in the centers and corridors. To identify the variations in travel behavior like walking, driving and etc. in centers and corridors. The authors selected a case study area named “South bay” area of Los Angeles County. South bay is a mature auto oriented sub urban region. The case study area includes four centers and four corridors. Centers are the places where commercial development is in circular form. And the corridors are the places where the commercial development is in the linear form. The both centers and corridors have mix of residential and commercial land uses (Marlon G. Boarnet).

The detailed travel dairy survey has been conducted on 2125 residents in south bay neighborhoods which is a part of three years study. The study area is divided into inner and outer rings. The authors used travel behavior variables (Independent variables) and socio demographic data which are important predictors of travel behavior for land use travel behavior relationships. From the overall analysis, the results are as follows (Marlon G. Boarnet).

1. The number of walking trips per day in centers are double than corridors.

2. The number of driving trips per day is greater in corridors than centers.

3. The centers are the places where people walk more, drive less and take more driving trips.

The authors found the associations between the land use approach and mobility approach, and a need for co-ordination of this two approaches for the question “how to retrofit a sub urban region to increase walking?” The general concept for this co-ordination of both approaches was to accommodate increased walking. The output for this research shows walking – land use association that is strong enough to provide a better motivation and basis for other planning researches (Marlon G. Boarnet).

New York, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami are the 2016 best cities and neighborhoods in the walkable neighborhoods category (walkscore, 2016). Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton, Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Marietta, Tennessee/Kentucky and Prescott, Arizona are mostly sprawl areas (lab, 2014) 

3. CASE STUDY:

3.1 Introduction:

Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace (FWBT) and West Evergreen (WE) are two neighborhoods located in San Jose in the state of California (Appendix A, figure 1). This two neighborhoods are part of Strong Neighborhoods Initiative (SNI) program. This program serves the communities which needs assistance. In neighborhood improvement plan, it studied the existing conditions and identified the specific locations where walkability can be improved (SCHROEDER, 2010). This two neighborhoods are part of the 2040 general plan which aimed to increase the quality of life of the people by improving more walking and encouraging sustainable transportation (Renzel, 2007). Both neighborhoods are connected by major Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) bus line. 82% of Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace and 86% West Evergreen work trips were made by automobile and only 2% of walking trips were done (SCHROEDER, 2010).

Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace is a compact, rectilinear pre-world war II development (Appendix A, figure 2). According to 2000 census, this neighborhood consists of 20,000 population which is located 1 mile east of downtown San Jose. This neighborhood is base for the committed volunteers who involve in planning and initiating improvements with the local government (Initiative, 2006). This neighborhood consists of most residential units and industrial units are within close proximity. This neighborhood mostly consists of Hispanic/ Latino population of 73% and the rest are Asians, and Pacific Islanders. It has a median household income of $49,000 and average household size of 3.5 which is more than the city of San Jose average household size 3.1 (SCHROEDER, 2010).

West Evergreen is a sprawling, post-World War II suburban development (Appendix A, figure

...