title: Building a reliable measure for unobtrusive observations of street-connecting pedestrian walkways.
abstract: There is evidence that good urban design, including street connectivity, facilitates walking for transport. We, therefore, piloted a short survey on 118 such walkways in nine suburbs in Wellington, New Zealand's capital. The instrument appeared feasible to use and performed well in terms of inter-rater reliability (median Kappa score for 15 items: 0.88). The study identified both favorable features (e.g., railings by steps), but also problematic ones (e.g., concerning graffiti, litter, and insufficient lighting and signage). There is scope for routinising the monitoring of walkway quality so that citizens and government agencies can work together to enhance urban walkability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, 7343, Wellington South, New Zealand, nick.wilson@otago.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Bill
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brander
authors.forename: Osman D
authors.initials: OD
authors.lastname: Mansoor
authors.forename: Amber L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Pearson
mesh_terms: D002958:City Planning; D004779:Environment Design; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D019370:Observation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016138:Walking