THE DEVELOPMENT AND ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES ASSOCIATED WITH WALKABILITY OF URBAN STREETS

It is now crucial for cities to prioritize pedestrians in their plans to recognize the benefits of walking and physical activities. Given that, understanding the relationship between the urban environment features and walking is the ongoing issue in most transportation and urban studies. This study was an attempt to investigate the development of features affecting walking in urban environments in accordance with transportation and related studies. The issue was investigated using a framework with three urban scales: Cities, blocks, and streets. Since in this investigation the focus was on the urban streets, the features had been chosen on this scale for further assessments, including function, safety, and aesthetic aspects. To evaluate the relative importance of these features and their associated factors, 100 questioners were filled by urban science experts. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was chosen for assessing the results. The results showed that the safety feature has the utmost importance among all and it should be considered in the design of streets.