Writers: Jennifer Eveland and Serene Tng
Whether we are walking to get groceries or to the nearby bus stop or train station to get somewhere, we are often making snap decisions on the best routes to take each day. In our rush to get out of busy train stations and moving through underpasses, mid-block links and overpasses, we hardly notice how we choose where we walk or what makes us enjoy the walk more.
Yet walking for sheer pleasure, health or to get somewhere is the invisible glue that connects everything in a city’s mobility system, especially in the shift towards a multi-modal transport network.
Image credit: Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability
"We spend so much time walking each day but we do not pay enough attention to the quality of our walking experiences even if it is just walking from point A to B,” says Dr Alexander Erath. He and other experts and urban planners are delving deeper into understanding people’s choices and behaviours on where they choose to walk around high activity areas such as busy train stations in Singapore.
The multidisciplinary study, “Pedestrian comfort in high pedestrian activity areas1” from September 2017 to mid-2020 sought to enable planners to anticipate more accurately the crowds and movements of people around high-activity areas and to better plan for and design even more comfortable and enjoyable walkways in these areas.
Some of the key leads of the study, Dr Alexander Erath and Dr Michael van Eggermond from the Future Cities Laboratory at the Singapore-ETH Centre, and Dr Bige Tunçer, Associate Professor of Architecture & Sustainable Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, share interim insights from the study, talk about design implications for pedestrian pathways in the Covid-19 context and what the ideal pedestrian pathway could look like.
A key focus of the study is on pedestrian comfort. Why is this important?
Alexander: Compared to other transport modes, walking is a terribly slow activity. If we want to get somewhere, we spend quite some time walking. For a typical trip from Tampines to the city centre by public transport for example, about a third of the time is spent walking or waiting.
While walking, we are exposed to the environment such as noise, heat and other elements much more than any other modes of transport. Hence, comfort for those walking becomes more important.
Bige: Comfort can mean many things, such as safety and security, thermal comfort, protection from the elements, variability in facades, crowdedness, but it can also contribute to be a certain quality of a city.
Pedestrian paths are public places that serve a number of different purposes. They can also provide social sustainability through opportunities for interaction between individuals from diverse backgrounds.
The study focused on the connections surrounding the Orchard, Jurong East, Raffles Place and Tampines train stations. What is your take on the pedestrian walkways around train stations today?
Michael: Singapore’s train stations already provide quite a number of direct routes in supporting large movements of people coming through. In fact, this has been so successful that some of the walkways connecting to train stations become quite busy at certain times of the day.
For some train stations like the one at Raffles Place, the provision of underground walkways is great for the commuter. You can walk for 800 metres underground to get there avoiding traffic interruptions.
Alexander: Just to add to that, I know of the former head of the Swiss Federal Railway company who came to Singapore to learn how mobility hubs are integrated with the surrounding neighborhoods or buildings here and has come away inspired by this experience and is pushing for some of these aspects in Switzerland.
What have you found out so far about people’s choices and behaviours on where they choose to walk?
Alexander: A surprising finding is that people are willing to walk longer distances, in particular, in the city centre. In an earlier project, we tracked several people who prefer to walk between places around City Hall and Bugis, which is maybe one kilometre, as compared to taking a bus for two stops.
Even in hot and humid Singapore, there is a significant amount of walking not only to change modes of transport but also just to get from point A to B in the city centre.
From the study, we also find that people would try to find the most direct route to get from point A to B. This means they are more likely to jaywalk across the street than to use the overpass. But we also observed that people value comfort and are willing to take slightly longer routes if they feature greenery, less traffic and shelter from sun and rain. However, since directness is such a paramount factor, there is a limit with regards to influencing people’s behaviour to take certain routes. Placing a nice park that is somewhat off the desired walking routes for example won’t attract pedestrians that want to get to their destination.
Bige: Another finding is that people consistently do not prefer separators in walkways. Barriers are more acceptable when they have additional functionality such as seating or plants, but people are generally against such obstacles.
We also found that people prefer openness. This is very pronounced in indoor walkways but also outdoors. Participants consistently preferred more visibility, meaning the sides of the pathway is open and not blocked by buildings or trees. It gives us an interesting direction for design recommendations and for possible future studies on how to give this perception of openness.
For many of our train stations, we have to walk through underpasses and enclosed pathways. What specific challenges are there for indoor pathways?
Alexander: A pedestrian walkway should not only be considered as a way to get from A to B but as a public space. Some of the indoor pathways around transport hubs here are managed by the private sector. How then can you ensure that this public space is being used with the public interest in mind?
It makes a huge difference whether you walk along a concrete wall which sometimes happens within access ways to train stations or between train stations and shopping centre office towers. Or whether this is an attractive pedestrian walkway with some cushion zone between the shops and the open walkway where you can sit down and rest without the need to buy something.
Michael: The challenge is how do you quantify attractiveness for an indoor walkway and describe the role of an indoor walkway within a larger network of walkways? It's very hard to make predictions about the future on how will this indoor space be used, by whom and what the functions will be. Will it be a thoroughfare or will it be somewhere people want to linger longer and spend more time? These functions will change over time.
The surroundings of the building will also change. You cannot view the building as just a building itself but you have to think about how it interfaces with its surroundings in future. How can the layout of walkways of this building, which again is part of the city, take into account for what happens around the building, now and in the future?
What do these insights mean for the future design of pedestrian pathways?
Alexander: These insights into understanding people’s walking choices and behaviours will help us to think about how best to design people’s preferred walking routes in a way that is comfortable, safe and attractive enough for people to walk longer distances.
With such insights together with certain available data such as the density of buildings and how many tenants or office workers are accessing the buildings, you can potentially make certain predictions on how many people would use certain links or routes around transport modes. This will be helpful to guide efforts on how to make walking along preferred routes even more comfortable. It would also be helpful in the covid-19 pandemic context to prioritise if changes need to be made to certain pedestrian walkways from a public health perspective.
When redeveloping neighbourhoods or planning new ones, it also has implications not only for designing walkways but also for designing urban neighbourhoods with regards to land use - where you put what types of building uses. For example, providing economic opportunities for small business owners who need pedestrians to walk by.
Does any of this impact how we design for a post-COVID-19 world?
Alexander: In many cities around to world, we see people trying to avoid public transport due to the COVID-19 situation. As a result, we see increasing rates for cycling, but some people are also driving more. To make cycling more attractive, several cities have started to roll out temporary cycling lanes. And as restaurants need more space to serve their customers, cities such as San Francisco have started to allow them to convert on-street parking lots into al fresco areas. The shared experience on how such a reallocation of public space can impact urban liveability could indeed be a mind opener for future planning debates.
Michael: It’s not only about how we design for pedestrian comfort, but where. We are now required to spend more time around our homes, so providing pedestrian comfort around these areas is important as well.
Alexander: More than just pedestrian comfort, it is also about the destinations. What can we actually reach within walking distance? Where are the nearby quality public spaces where we can linger around and connect with our neighbours? This is much more important in the long run. In the last 100 years with mass motorisation and efficient public transport systems, we have been able to travel faster and farther away. But we’ve lost connections to the places that are just in front of our door.
In an ideal world, what would pedestrian spaces and walkways look like?
Alexander: They must be interesting, comfortable and relevant in the sense that you can reach the places you want to go but also have a bit of surprise from the unexpected. Of course, you need to get the basics right, for example a continuous walking experience, a direct walk without too much waiting at crosswalks.
In Singapore, there are hundreds of bus stops which don’t have a crosswalk nearby. I think we need to consider transport journeys from door to door, and not just starting and ending at bus stops. The pedestrian walkway is part of that journey.
Michael: While collecting data for this project, I had the chance to observe how outdoor walkways support different users at different times, varying from the early morning to very late at night. These uses include people taking their kids to ride scooters on Orchard Road in the morning, running or walking the dog. A walkway is more than just a transport mode to move people through. How can it support different users at different times of the day?
Bige: The ideal would be a less stressful environment for people who are not completely familiar with their surroundings. A combination of spatial cues, spatial composition and signage to choose the most efficient path and make commuting more pleasant. There will be more continuity, for example floor and wall materials used from building to building. When designers become more aware of design recommendations that will improve the experience for pedestrians, then I think this will improve the environment.
1 The study is undertaken by researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design, the Singapore-ETH Centre, the National University of Singapore and the design company AGENCY. Collaborating government agencies are the URA, Housing and Development Board and the Land Transport Authority. This research is supported by the Singapore Ministry of National Development (MND) and the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office under the Land and Liveability National Innovation Challenge (L2NIC) Research Programme Award No. L2NICTDF1-2017-1. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the interviewees, and do not reflect the views of MND and NRF, URA and other agencies involved in the study.