Jeff Speck 2 : 4 ways to make a city more walkable

                              

Jeff Speck 2 : 4 ways to make a city more walkable (transcript)

Summary

The speaker told us why we need the walkable city in the previous TED talk. This time, he talks about how to do the walkable city.

If a walk is as good as a drive or better, even people who own cars and want to drive all the time will start to walk.

What does this mean?

It means that the city has a proper reason to walk,1) the walk has to be safe and feel safe, 2) the walk has to be comfortable, 3) and the walk has to be interesting. 4)

What is a proper reason to walk? 1)

Probably, in your city, you can’t walk to your office from your house or your children can't walk to school and soccer field. It's because in your city, nothing is located near anything else and you have to use your car, you have to pick and drop your children off by car. Then it leads to traffic accidents.

In the past, when factories discharged the smoke and the soot, the planners moved the housing away from the factories, thus suburban sprawl couldn’t be helped.

However, your city will be better to be compact and be diverse from now, won't it? You can live in the city which has offices, shops, schools and perfect transit to be able to access to the whole city as a pedestrian. You and your children can go all places on foot. This is the another dream that you use a car.

How does the walk have to be safe and feel safe? 2)

The speaker said that this is the most important part, and of course, it means to create a walkable city. The streets have appropriate driving lanes, an amount of on street parking, and bike lanes. In fact, to add only driving lanes leads to the traffic jam and accidents. Adding more on street parking protects the sidewalk, it makes the sidewalk safe. It also creates great bicycle network. This is the very different from Tokyo, Japan. In Tokyo, all streets are forbidden to park, even a few seconds, you have to pay parking fines. There are many men who would retire police and who observe the streets. The merchants are in deep trouble.

So the parallel parking protects the curb and pedestrians.

The walk has to be comfortable. 3) It means that all animals need a prospect and a refuge to feel that you are covered. The speaker tells us that it needs to have good e.edges on the streets.

The walk has to be interesting. 4) lt’ll mean that the places which people gather draw more people.

The places where there are great restaurants and shops should be built better streets for pedestrians. It’ll be wonderful if your city becomes more walkable.

This is the world famous Shibuya scramble crossing in Japan. Is it a walkable?

Words in this story

nuisance / a person, thing, or circumstance causing inconvenience or annoyance.

transit / transportation, transport, movement, flow
pedestrian /adj/ lacking inspiration or excitement; dull. /noun/ walker, person on foot, foot traffic
congestion / crowding, overcrowding, obstruction, blockage, traffic jam