The development and testing of an audit for the pedestrian environment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2006.06.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Recognizing the need for consistent, reliable, and efficient methods to collect information about the walking environment, the authors have developed and tested a complete environmental audit methodology—the Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan (PEDS). In this paper, the development of the audit methodology is presented, including the design of the instrument, the creation of training and supporting materials, administration, and integration with handheld technology. Various tests of inter- and intra-rater reliability of our instrument have been conducted, including individual audit measures and various approaches to administering the audit. The results indicate high reliability for most measures and confirmed administration procedures. The PEDS audit methodology provides a comprehensive method to evaluate pedestrian environments for academics involved with transportation and physical activity research as well as practitioners seeking to an assessment tool for prioritizing investments.

Introduction

The relationship between transportation choices and the physical environment, including the built and natural elements, has long been the subject of inquiry of transportation researchers (for reviews of this line of research see Crane, 2000, Badoe and Miller, 2000). Various studies have aimed to identify the direction and magnitude of the relationships between land use and urban form characteristics and the amount of travel by various modes. The measures of the built environment commonly used in models of individual or group behavior tend to be limited in scope by the archived data available and aggregated to a large area (such as a census tract or traffic analysis zone). For example, residential population, employment and street network densities are commonly used in these models to reflect the built environment. However, these macroscale measures do not capture the multiple and detailed dimensions of the physical environment, particularly those experienced during non-motorized travel. The contradictory and mixed findings in this line of research have been attributed, in part, to the lack of consistent and appropriate environmental data relevant for non-motorized modes (Frank and Engelke, 2001, Handy et al., 2002).

Recently, considerable interest has been generated around the potential connections between the health outcomes, the built and natural environment, and levels of physical activity, including walking and cycling (Frank and Engelke, 2001, Jackson, 2002, Handy et al., 2002). Inquiries in this line of research have revived the need for comprehensive and detailed environmental measures in order to identify elements of the physical and natural environment that support or detract from walking (Kwon et al., 1998, Painter, 1996). The policy questions for both transportation and public health research converge on the development of generally accepted standards for what constitutes a walkable environment and unearthing the nature of the relationship between this environment and walking behavior—and, in a larger context, health (Frank, 2000, Frank and Engelke, 2001, Funder's Network, 2003, Craig et al., 2002, Jackson, 2002).

Recognizing the need for consistent, reliable, and efficient methods to collect information about the walking environment, the authors have developed and tested a complete environmental audit methodology—the Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan (PEDS). This paper describes this effort. It begins with a brief review of efforts to define the critical elements of the walking environment and assess them using environmental audits. The development of the audit methodology is presented, including the design of the instrument, the creation of training and supporting materials, administration, and integration with handheld technology. Critical to the usefulness of an audit is its reliability in eliciting consistent results. Therefore, we report on various tests of inter- and intra-rater reliability of our instrument: individual audit measures and various approaches to administering the audit. The paper concludes with a discussion of the contributions of this audit methodology, comparisons with other existing pedestrian audits, and directions for future work.

Section snippets

Defining and assessing walkability

Planning policy and practice aspires to develop a normative definition of a “walkable” environment and there have been a number of efforts to test these definitions empirically (Ewing, 1999, Partnership for a Walkable America, 2001, Targa and Clifton, 2005). A large number of studies limit their measures of the environment to data that are readily available and comparable across US locations through secondary sources, such as the US Census Bureau (Crane, 1996, Berrigan and Troiano, 2002). These

Pedestrian environmental data scan

The Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan was designed to capture a range of elements of the built and natural environment efficiently and reliably. PEDS is not alone in this effort; a number of environmental assessment tools have emerged recently (Vernez-Moudon and Lee, 2003; see Table 1 for comparisons between audits). PEDS contribution to this growing field of environmental audits resides in the following areas: (1) consideration of a variety of environmental elements and contexts within in the

Discussion

The PEDS audit methodology showed encouraging results. Much of the training materials and protocol were altered during the project in response to the questions, comments and issues encountered by the raters. These alterations in the supporting materials of the audit improved the already positive reliability results.

In light of the high variation of uses, conditions and aesthetics of the segments in College Park, the reliability scores of the audit questions were very encouraging. Almost all

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research Program, the National Science Foundation Research Internships in the Sciences and Engineering (RISE), and the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland for their support in this research.

Kelly J. Clifton, PhD is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a research faculty at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.

References (35)

  • C.L. Craig et al.

    Exploring the effect of the environmental on physical activity: a study examining walking to work

    Am. J. Prev. Med.

    (2002)
  • R. Crane

    On form versus function: will the new urbanism reduce traffic, or increase it?

    J. Plan. Educ. Res.

    (1996)
  • R. Crane

    The influence of urban form on travel: an interpretive review

    J. Plan. Lit.

    (2000)
  • J. Emery et al.

    Reliability and validity of two instruments designed to assess the walking and bicycling suitability of sidewalks and roads

    Am. J. Health Promot.

    (2003)
  • R. Ewing

    Pedestrian and Transit-friendly Design: a Primer for Smart Growth

    (1999)
  • Lawrence D. Frank

    Land use and transportation interaction: implications on public health and quality of life

    J. Plan. Educ. Res.

    (2000)
  • Lawrence D. Frank et al.

    The built environment and human activity patterns: exploring the impacts of urban form on public health

    J. Plan. Lit.

    (2001)
  • Cited by (357)

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    Kelly J. Clifton, PhD is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a research faculty at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.

    Andréa D. Livi Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland.

    Daniel A. Rodriguez, PhD is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in the Department of City and Regional Planning.

    1

    Tel.: +1 301 405 8971; fax: +1 301 314 5639.

    2

    Tel.: +1 919 962 4763; fax: +1 919 962 5206.

    View full text