AY1516 T2 Team CommuteThere ReviewofPreviousWork
Singapore Context
In the paper Enhancing the Pedestrian Experience in Singapore: A Closer Look at MRT Transfers and CBD Walkability, a research was conducted to find out the extent whereby the pedestrian system of Singapore could be improved, given the state of infrastructure assets and the hot and humid tropical climate present. The research was focused on walking as a form of transport in Singapore. A “Walking Experience in Singapore” survey was conducted, and it was discovered that Singaporeans’ two biggest complaints of walking were the bad weather conditions and humid climate, and the paths that they chose to walk by depended on weather considerations.
Also, in the paper, a research was conducted with regards to walkability within Residential Estates. The main neighbourhood that was studied was Pasir Ris, and it was concluded that urban planners had to find a balance between traffic priority and residential walkability. The best solution would be to reroute areas with major traffic away from areas with high pedestrian movements, so as to appease both the working population who commute during peak hours as well as the residents who travel intra-neighbourhood for non-work trips during off-peak hours. The main issue that was pointed out was that Singapore’s current main transportation planning has revolved around getting the working population to work efficiently, but the permanent road infrastructure poses more as a disincentive to walkability because it encourages road traffic more than residential walkability. The paper has not yet researched on ways in which walkability can be encouraged in the residential areas.
Hence, in our project, we will seek to find alternatives that will incentivize walkability in residential areas, especially during the non-peak hours. Also, we will look for reasons, apart from the weather conditions, that may impair the walking experience for residents. However, another research gap was that a survey of a wider-scale had to be conducted to understand residents’ sentiment with regards to walkability. In this project, however, we are unable to conduct a wide-scale survey due to the lack of resources available.
The second paper we reviewed, Influence of Space and Time Concepts on Physical Activity Intensity in Singapore, a research was conducted to understand how the different characteristics of the built environment in communities influence people’s physical activity level. Results showed that walkability index of the neighbourhood have a positive correlation to the residents’ physical activity levels. This is also more prominent for men than women. It was also concluded that Bukit Timah, Tanglin and Tengah areas are least conducive for residents to walk for utilitarian or leisure purposes whereas Queenstown, Bukit Merah and Toa Payoh are the most conducive areas.
The author also mentioned about a previous study that was conducted to analyse the relationship between the proximity and mix of neighbourhood destinations and physical activity. He discovered that proximity and mix of destinations appears to have a stronger correlation with walking for utilitarian purposes as compared to walking for leisure purposes. Therefore, increasing the diversity of destinations may encourage adults doing more transport-related walking and achieving recommended levels of physical activity (McCormack, 2008). The author concluded by mentioning that there needs to be greater amounts of research conducted on how “residential neighbourhoods’ built and social environment characteristics can promote active, healthy lifestyles.”
Therefore, for our project, apart from adopting the walkability index model will provide a more in-depth analysis on walkability in the Tampines area, we will also look analyse the built environment in Tampines itself, especially of the common transportation routes taken, and eventually suggest ways in which improvements in the built environment can be made in order to promote walkability in the residential area.
Overseas Context
In the research paper The Walkable City: Neighbourhood Design and Preferences, Travel Choices and Health, a study was conducted in Toronto’s neighbourhoods to research on the public’s preferences for walkable neighbourhoods. Residents in such neighbourhoods are known to enjoy advantages such as health benefits and a better quality of life. Through a survey conducted, it was found that there was an overwhelming preference for more walkable neighbourhoods. Results also found that neighbourhoods with positive significant air quality, climate, less traffic congestion and higher connectivity to nearby shops and services were associated with high walkability.
This research paper adopts walkability index as a tool to measure and evaluate neighbourhood’s physical infrastructures that are closely related with utilitarian working. However, it is crucial to note that this walkability index was not designed to address other factors such as safety or streetscape features such as shade. We can adopt this walkability index model and further enhance it by taking into account some of these neighbourhood features mentioned in this research paper that are not considered in the walkability index model.
In the second research paper A Walkability Study of North Adams, Massachusetts, a study was conducted to assess the walkability of North Adams and provide recommendations to further improve North Adams walkability. The walkability audit is broken down into quantitative and qualitative assessment. In quantitative assessment, the author assess mainly the physical infrastructures in North Adams such as sidewalks and signage and rank them on a scale from 1(worst) to 5(best). In qualitative assessment, the author mainly conduct interviews and surveys with various stakeholders such as the pedestrians and mayor of North Adams to help them to identify other influential aspects of a particular area that are not captured in the quantitative data. Thus, we could refer to this research paper in order to provide guidance to our walkability audit. This is crucial as it will allow us to be equipped with the correct techniques to make a thorough analysis.
The author suggests in the research paper that one should exercise prudence when providing recommendations to improve the current pathways. Recommendations that require huge developments to the pre-existing urban sprawl will be costly and difficult to implement. On the other hand, smaller changes such as improving the quality of the signage can also make the neighborhoods more pedestrian friendly without incurring such huge costs. Furthermore, it is also important to take into account the demographics of the neighborhood, such as age group, when proposing future improvements to the physical infrastructure or when conducting walkability audits.
The author also states that physical activity was once part of our daily routines. Cars have since replaced walking or biking, and stairs climbing is now being replaced by elevators and escalators. These have resulted in physical inactivity where people are not moving enough.
However, both studies focused mainly on the physical infrastructures in North Adams and Toronto, and failed to consider other factors, such as the availability of cars, that was mentioned in one of the research papers that could lead to physical inactivity. This could pave the way for more research to be done on whether other factors such as availability of cars would affect the walkability of the neighbourhood.
Bringing this study back to the context of Singapore, it will be more relevant to look at the availability of public transport instead of cars where public transport ridership has been increasing and hit a record of 6.65 million trips per day in 2014. Thus, this leads to our study where we seek to justify if an efficient transport system encourage people to take buses instead of walking even if the time taken to walk is shorter than taking a bus.
