Walking is a great way to spend time outside and be active, but depending on where you live and your surrounding environment, there may be barriers in the way of you feeling safe.
Feeling safe while out for a walk, whether it be with proper street lighting, well-maintained sidewalks, or marked crossings. These factors can all contribute to you feeling safe while out on a walk.
Here are 5 ways communities can make their streets safer for pedestrians to encourage walking:
Accessible and continuous sidewalks
Sidewalks make us inherently safer due to physical separation from cars and bicycles. As such, they should be accessible for all users, including those with strollers, wheelchairs, walkers or other devices. Accessible sidewalks mean proper curb cuts, tactile surfaces, crosswalks and enough width to pass or walk with a friend. Continuous sidewalks mean sidewalks that don’t end abruptly and connect to each other.
‘Slow streets’
Greater safety for people on foot can be achieved through ‘Slow streets’, a relatively new term for a variety of measures for slowing vehicle speeds and reducing traffic volumes in neighbourhoods and on local streets, including speed humps, raised intersections, narrowing of roadways, and reallocation vehicle lanes for retail activity like queuing, dining or congregating in small groups. By slowing vehicle traffic, the number of pedestrian-vehicle collisions is reduced, and the pedestrian activity is more likely to increase.
Car-free spaces
Events like ‘car-free days’ are opportunities for everyone to fill the streets with activity and life, no matter what your typical travel mode may be. Car-free spaces provide a new and safe perspective of the street for pedestrians by temporarily limiting access of the street to cars, which helps reduce air pollution, increases space for leisure activities, and enables physical distancing.
More street lighting
Street lighting increases pedestrian visibility and security, particularly on streets with lots of tree cover. In addition to the spacing between lights, it’s important to keep street lights at a pedestrian scale for optimum visibility while walking. These factors are particularly important during the long and dark winters we often have in BC.
Converting inactive spaces into pedestrian plazas
Pedestrian plazas are a great way to convert underutilized spaces into safe places for people to stop, observe, and interact with their surroundings, which also promotes local businesses and fosters a sense of community.
Making our communities safer for pedestrians benefits all modes of transportation, and contributes to the fundamental principles of Vision Zero - to promote safe mobility and to eliminate harm to all road users.
Fill out the Living Streets Survey to let us know what barriers there are to walking in your community. Check out livingstreets.ca to find out more about how communities across BC are encouraging walking and making their streets safer.
