In broad terms, walkability is defined by quality of which the built environment enables the mobility of pedestrians. Walkability and walking are closely entwined with the concepts of the livability of local communities as well as sustainability and its three pillars: the economic, social, and environmental. Health studies examining physical activity cite walking and biking as measures that facilitate physical rehabilitation and mitigate modern chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension, and mental health and depression ( Barton et al., 2009 Johansson et al., 2011 Roe and Aspinall, 2011 Mackenbach et al., 2014). The need to reduce air pollution and carbon emissions per capita, the exhaustive traffic stress on urban centers, and an increasing environmental awareness by city dwellers have advanced public support for nonmotorized, active transportation modes. Today, walking and walkability is increasingly becoming a central theme in urban planning, partially in response to public demand and the search for sustainable urban development.
Only with the oil crisis of the 1970s, and the expansion of high-rise buildings did urban developers begin emphasizing the importance of walkability, particularly for those who travel by public transportation ( Tribe, 1976 Lo, 2009 Roe and Aspinall, 2011 Forsyth, 2015). Since then, most planning focused on creating the space for motorized transportation, especially highways connecting sparse urban centers and neglected active transportation modes such as walking and biking. This created an expansion pattern known as known as urban sprawl, in which large swathes of urban populations move to the outskirts and suburbs of their cities, which are designed to have low-density housing, and a lifestyle dependent on private automobiles due to the single land-use and the scattering of the daily destinations ( Glaeser and Kahn, 2004). That changed with the rapid urbanization and mass introduction of cars in the 1950s and the subsequent population growth in suburbanite areas around the major cities.
Historically, walking has been the main mode of transportation in urban areas. Research opportunities in the field of walkability can leverage location tracking from smart devices and identify the interaction patterns of pedestrians with other transportation modes, especially for those with fundamental movement challenges such as wheelchair users. Furthermore, there is a lack of emphasis on air quality and thermal stress while approaching walkability, despite being important elements in the walking experience. There is no unified universal standardized walkability theory despite the need for rigorous evaluation tools for policy makers and developers. Hence, this review explores a few popular walkability evaluation indices and frameworks that employ subjective, objective, and/or distinctive methods within variant environmental, cultural, and national context. The review inspects physical elements of the built environment that make the walking trip feasible and desirable, such as connectivity, accessibility, and closeness of destination points, presence of greenness and parks, commercial retail, and proximity to transit hubs and stations. This review advocates that long-term health benefits from walking and physical activity are the premier incentive to repurpose our cities to be more sustainable and more walking friendly, and spark behavioral change into reducing car dependency for all daily transportations. Adopting walkability as urban solution relieves conceptual and practical tensions between the individualistic interests manifested in the desire to own and use private cars, and the need to reduce transportation-based consumption. Therefore, walkability is a core urban design element because of being advantageous onto three fronts: health, livability, and sustainability. Urban sprawl and increasing population density in urban centers create the challenge to finding ways of sustainable transportation solutions that preserve the convenience of residents while reducing emissions. Division of Sustainable Development, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar.
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