In the light of urban growth, Melbourne needs to address the rising numbers of pedestrians in the central city. Walking is the main mode of transport (86%, figure 12, p. 10) and tram stops, pedestrian crossings and sidewalks get increasingly crowded at peak hours. The principal aim of the new pedestrian strategy, conducted by City of Melbourne’s strategic transport planners, is to get people to walk more by providing a suitable urban environment to walk in – a street network capable of facilitating current as well as future levels of pedestrians. This research looks at pedestrian crowding, and how it is measured and analysed in cities around the world. It reviews two specific tools, pedestrian level of service (LOS) and pedestrian trip generation. It studies London, New York and Copenhagen in more detail, and the work and experience of Gehl Architects in Copenhagen.
It commences a discussion of how these methodologies are relevant to Melbourne and whether they are applicable and/or can form inspiration in the development of Melbourne’s pedestrian analysis. The study has found that although many cities work to improve pedestrian conditions, there is no generally adopted methodology or standard for pedestrian LOS or trip generation. Pedestrian trip generation calculations are novel and relatively unexplored....
A majority of cities analysing pedestrian LOS use the Fruin scale from the 1970s. This method analyses quantitatively the number of people walking in a street, but ignores several important factors relating to walkability. Gehl Architects has led the way in elaborating a different and more comprehensive methodology, based on over 30 years experience. They have identified a general street crowding capacity of 13 people per meter per minute, a figure applied by London in their Pedestrian Comfort Level (PCL) assessments. The London framework combines Fruin’s crowding scale with Gehl’s experiences and sets up a comprehensive implementation guide based on area types, street features and pedestrian counts. PCL is calculated for both sidewalks and pedestrian crossings. Melbourne could implement this framework directly, if more and better counting sensors are installed, data collected from the relevant sites and area types analysed in terms of crowding acceptance.....I've already posted information here and here about what Dr John Fruin has to say in the 1970's about the safe capacity of a pedestrian corridor or laneway. This is a summary of Gehl's more recent findings:
Gehl Architects have assessed walkability in cities all around the world, including Melbourne. Gehl defines crowding as more than 13 people per minute per meter footway width. This is based on long experience. The Architecture School in Copenhagen collected data in public spaces in Copenhagen between 1968 and 1996. They found through this research that the main pedestrian street, Stroget, in Copenhagen reached its capacity at 13 people per meter per minute. Once this level of activity was reached, pedestrians started to move along parallel streets to avoid congestion.
Recommended pedestrian capacity:
13 person/minute/meter footway width x available footway width = no. of pedestrians/minute
Henritte Vamberg at Gehl Architects says: ‘The comfort level drops the more pedestrians you have. The above parameter is looking at when pedestrians start walking in “lines”, when you get crushed, when you can’t maneuver a wheelchair through etc.’. What is different with this methodology is that it is based on levels of quality and comfort rather than quantity – conventional LOS methods (mentioned by Fruin) deal only with how many people a street can carry (Gehl Architects, 2004, p. 34).
Using the Gehl walkability metric for a 5 metre wide laneway: 13 x 5 x 60 = 3,900 pedestrians/hour.
This is a conservative - perhaps Scandanavian - approach. The Pedestrian Guidance Manual for London takes Gehl and Fruin and observations to produce a set of guidelines related to Pedestrian Comfort Levels in London. It contains two useful graphics, and ppmm (pedestrian per metre width per minute) advice, which are applicable to office, retail and mass transit pathways.....
Taking the "D" Pedestrian Comfort Level established by London Transport (assume 30 people/clear pathway width metre/minute), and applying it to the proposed downtown laneway, what carrying capacity does a 5 metre pathway have - at this "Very Uncomfortable" service level?
Carrying capacity = 30 x 5 x 60 = 9,000 people/hour
Which is less than the 10,000 average capacity claimed by Auckland Council, and much less than the peak capacity claimed in evidence to hearing commissioners of 16,000 people/hour, and makes a mockery of the 24,000 people/hour claimed by Auckland Council in further information provided to commissioners.
The London advice provides a useful tabulation of pedestrian comfort levels for different types of pedestrian environments, including mass transit pathways. This relates to the A to E comfort level carrying capacities tabulated above.
You can see there that London Transport's advice is that a service level of C+ to C is deemed "acceptable" and that planning for higher throughput means that pedestrian comfort is assessed as "at risk".
Using the "C" grade of personal comfort, gives the carrying capacity of a 5 metre wide laneway as:
23 x 5 x 60 = 6,900 pedestrians/hour
If Auckland wants to build toward its claim as "most liveable city", surely it is about time it adopted pedestrian comfort standards that are recommended in other great cities.
Gehl Architects, 2004, ‘Towards a Fine City for People – Public Spaces and Public Life – London 2004’, DM 7460245
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