City safety
A walkable city must first of all be safe. The famous author Jane Jacobs wrote that once a street is well equipped to handle strangers, once it has both a good and effective demarcation between private and public spaces, and has a good supply of activity and eyes, the more strangers the merrier. Good street lighting plus street residents who give general street support with their eyes ensure city safety.
You can tell a nice city by its sidewalks. As we promote tourism in our growing cities, we can aim to provide generously spaced, secure and well-designed sidewalks for pedestrians to move about within the city.
An element needed in our cities is the curb ramp for different types of pedestrians.
A curb ramp is an inclined surface built into the curb of a sidewalk for easy access to the street, especially for bicyclists, pedestrians with baby strollers and for physically disabled people.
Walkable cities start out by acknowledging that pedestrians are at the top of the transportation hierarchy. They reallocate road space by narrowing road space and widening sidewalks. This is part of the plan adopted by Toronto in its Walking Strategy aimed at promoting a culture of walking, making their streets for pedestrians and creating spaces and places for people. It is interesting to note that the most economically successful commercial streets are those that have high levels of pedestrian traffic.
Read more: http://business.inquirer.net/72039/promoting-a-culture-of-walking#ixzz3luuVQTrh
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