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In 2023, the Partnership for Active Travel and Health (PATH), conducted a global review of national climate policies related to walking and cycling in 197 UNFCCC member countries. This work was led by Walk21. The team found that while two-thirds of countries have some form of active travel policy, the level of ambition, action and investment remains insufficient.

Building on this momentum, in 2025, Walk21 and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the FIA Foundation, will apply a similar policy review methodology in LAC. The project will analyse national policies in 33 countries and examine their connection to walking and cycling, with a gender and inclusion perspective.

The project has four objectives:

• Build a network of key players in the promotion of walking and cycling.
• Explore how national policies across the region are using walking and cycling as strategies to make progress on health, climate and equity goals.
• Establish a baseline for walking and cycling in LAC and develop 13 case studies.
• Use the lessons learned to develop a report and training sessions.

The 33 countries that will be part of the study include Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Through this work, we hope to inspire a coordinated community of national and local governments to promote walking and cycling as strategies to achieve broader transportation, climate, health and gender equity goals, with the ultimate goal of improving conditions for all those who walk and cycle in the region.

Stay tuned for updates and news on the project. #Walk21LAC

The post Walk21 LAC: Growing Impact in Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on Walk21.

The Walkability App, available in the Apple and Google stores, allows citizens of all ages and abilities to share their walking experiences. Sharing walking experiences helps communities and responsible authorities to understand walkable places and identify areas that need further improvement to make walking better for everyone. Walking should be safe and enjoyable for everyone. When it isn’t, we walk less, and loose the health, social, environmental, and economic benefits associated with living in more walkable places.

The new app is coordinated by Walk21 Foundation, in partnership with Alstom, City of Lisbon and EIT Climate KIC. It builds on the success of earlier versions that have already helped children in Colombia and Rwanda, women in Ireland, and public transport users in Lagos, Belgrade, Cairo and Lusaka benefit from public space upgrades after sharing their walking experiences.

New functionalities include being able to add photos related to the experience, collect data offline, edit or update observations with latest information, or choose user roles for different types of data collection. The app also includes some gamification, communication, and social features to build walking communities and encourage participation. The App is already available in English, Spanish, Greek and Portuguese. It will be available in French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish and Norwegian before the end of the year.

The Walkability app is launched at the Walk21 Portugal conference on 16th October 2024 in Lisbon. The event is the 24th in the annual series of international conversations on walking and liveable cities. More than 500 representatives of communities, advocacy groups, practitioners, and politicians are gathering, from more than 50 countries, to discuss how best to improve urban mobility, benefit public health, create vibrant societies, and mitigate climate change.

Ângelo Pereira, Deputy Mayor Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, says:

“Data collection on the experience of walking is essential for our understanding of the citizen pedestrian needs, developing the best policies and evaluating measures. This project will give us the opportunity to create better information and processes for transforming Lisbon into a city of excellence for walking.”

Charlotte May, Climate KIC says:

“EIT Climate-KIC is delighted to be supporting Lisbon and Walk21 to develop the Walkability.App. This innovative project will improve data collection and citizen engagement in Lisbon and beyond, helping city planners to better identify barriers and prioritize improvements to make walking and wheeling safer and more attractive for everyone. By sharing knowledge and best practices between cities, we can tackle challenges such as decarbonisation and sustainable mobility at a faster speed and scale.” 

Veronique Andries, Alstom VP Sustainability & CSR says:

“Alstom is proud to support the development of the new Walkability app, which makes it even easier for people to take an active role in improving walkability in their cities. By enabling more walking we can reduce carbon emissions while at the same time improving accessibility within our communities, delivering for both individual citizens and the planet.”

Dr Carlos Cañas, Walkability App Lead at Walk21 says:

“We believe that pedestrians’ needs and experiences should play a key role in studying, planning and designing public space. This requires new ways of observing, measuring, analysing, and interpreting the walkable environment. The app is an affordable and accessible tool for policymakers, researchers, and advocates to ensure everyone’s walks are safe, comfortable, and enjoyable. I encourage you to download the app and share your walking experiences to help make walking better for everyone, everywhere”.

Walk21 Foundation, a UK charity, works globally to create safe, accessible, and welcoming places for people to walk. Since 2017, Walk21 has been supported by CEDEUS, GIZ, Alstom Foundation, and others, to develop tools that help make a positive impact. Special thanks to Alstom, the Municipality of Lisbon, and EIT Climate-KIC for their support with creating the new Walkability app.

MORE INFORMATION

Walkability App website: https://www.spotteron.com/walkability/

Walkability App for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotteron.walkability

Walkability App for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walkability/id6673912590

Walk21 website: https://walk21.com/resources/walkability-app/

The post New Walkability App appeared first on Walk21.

Worldwide, cities aspire to carbon-neutral transport systems, and to reduced inequities of access. Enabling and encouraging walking means designing better streets and retrofitting existing street environments. The question is how, especially without consensus on what “walkable” means, who experiences barriers, and what are the specific features of the walking environments that might cause difficulties. This is a major issue when it comes to undertaking rapid action to enable and encourage walking for transport and was the motivation for bringing together experts to build knowledge on the quality of walking environments.

The workshop series Stepping Stones for Better Walking Environments (StepS) was prepared and organised by an informal working group motivated by the idea of progressing the understanding of walkability to help cities make informed decisions on improving their street environments. Three workshops focusing on the quality of walking environments were organised online in two different time zones, each examining one important dimension:

1. Understanding the quality of walking environments: how to define it and its relationships with walking behaviours.
2. Measuring the quality of walking environments: best practice tools and methods.
3. Improving the quality of walking environments: best practices and motivations.

Each of the sessions delivered invaluable insights. They helped build knowledge on the importance of the quality of street environments and highlighted practical issues – for instance, the discussions did not identify a tool for assessing quality that is all at once based on diverse people’s experiences, systematic, objective, and easily scalable. Directions for further research and development were identified.

The rich material gathered was summarised in a note, accessible here. The recorded presentation showed at the Walk21 International Conference 2023 in Kigali is also available here. The team invites anyone interested to submit their views on this material and on ways to continue the discussion by filling this form. The inputs will help decide on the next steps, and contributions of those who have not been reached or haven’t been able to take part are particularly valued.

The post Street Design for Walking: What about quality? appeared first on Walk21.

A new report on pedestrian safety, comfort and accessibility, published today – Transport Day at COP28 – highlights a quick and affordable win for the city of Cairo, Egypt to increase public transit ridership, reduce transport emissions, and improve the health and sustainability of the city.

Using the new Walkability App, more than a thousand users were asked to share their walking experiences around 8 stations in inner city and suburban Cairo. Their reports reveal the everyday challenges that make active and public transport in Cairo often unattractive, difficult and at times dangerous. Analysis of the data provides an insight as to what actions need to be taken by authorities to better support those already walking and using public transport, and potentially entice more drivers out of their cars too.

Key findings from the research, led by a partnership of Walk21 Foundation, Transport for Cairo, NADA and with the support of Alstom, include: 

• • Only 35% of women and 40% of men reported positive walking experiences in Inner City areas, while in Outer City areas, only 39% of women and 31% reported positive walking experiences. The most commonly and negatively reported environmental factor in both inner and outer city areas is the “insufficient space and poor path quality.”
  • The large distances between destinations, higher traffic speeds and lack of accessible pedestrian infrastructure in the suburban, low rise New Urban Communities makes active and public transport undesirable and often not feasible. 
  • In contrast, people are much more likely to walk and use public transport in the dense, mixed use areas of inner city Cairo, where there are more walkable paths, less priority given to cars, and lower traffic speeds. Except for women who perceive walkability more negatively than men in Inner city areas.
  • The attractiveness of active and public transport changes with time of day in Cairo. Women perceive the safety of active and public transport to be five times better in the morning than in the evening.
  • The attractiveness of public transport changes with age and ability in Cairo. Teenagers experience public spaces more negatively than adults, and older people and those with disabilities report being disproportionately disadvantaged by the poor walkability, particularly in suburban Cairo.

These findings provide an opportunity for the authorities to respond with targeted actions to improve the walkability in the proximity of stations, reduce single occupant vehicle commuting, increase public transit ridership numbers, and improve the efficiency of the mobility system overall. The recommendations in the report include improvements to infrastructure and land-use planning, new campaigns targeting driver behaviour and capacity building to improve safety, comfort and accessibility.

Report Recommendations:

1. 1. Create more paths and make them wider, accessible, unobstructed and continuous throughout Cairo.
   2. Install more and safer at-grade road crossings as well as other traffic calming measures like speed bumps, raised crossings to guarantee the safe crossing of pedestrians while promoting safe speeds especially in the Downtown area.
   3. Implement Pedestrian Only or Pedestrian-Friendly Zones, restricting vehicular access during specific hours whenever feasible, to reduce pollution and give more priority to people walking especially in Downtown Cairo.
   4. Add more lighting to improve perception of security and increase security to reduce harassment near stations particularly in the evening off-peak period – between 7pm and 10pm.
   5. Protect pedestrians from the weather, by planting more trees on footpaths to provide shade for example, especially in the suburbs.
   6. Target better driver behaviour to give priority to pedestrians throughout Cairo.
   7. Establish and enforce safe speed limits throughout Cairo considering the use and function of each road. 
   8. Allocate more road space for pedestrians and create Dedicated Vending Zones and licence vendors to meet regulations and adopt a zero-tolerance policy for temporary and permanent obstructions that force pedestrians onto the carriageway.  
   9. Develop pedestrian design standards for enhancing public transport catchments.
   10. Adopt the Walkability App as a practical tool to engage citizens, target responses and evaluate the impact of actions.  
   11. Provide low-interest loans to small enterprises and commercial property owners to encourage enhancement of the overall streetscape.
   12. Give more priority to active and public transport and improve the coordination between government agencies and civil society.

Bronwen Thornton, CEO of Walk21 said:

“The quality of the walkability to public transit stations and stops is crucial to encourage people to use public transport. Making the walking conditions safe, accessible and attractive is not only good for the 61% of trips in Cairo that are already using these modes but is likely to also help shift 7- 15% of single occupant vehicle commuters to transit too. This would help the city reduce congestion and association emissions rapidly and increase the efficiency of the mobility system overall. The Walkability App transforms abstract challenges into tangible, evidence-based actions, enabling precise solutions”.

Mohamed Hegazy, Director and Principle of Transport for Cairo said:  

“As Egypt embarks on its biggest public transport investment spree in a generation, it’s vital that citizens can walk and cycle to and from the new rail, metro, monorail and BRT stations. What better way to decide where to invest limited resources than to ask the users themselves on which routes they use and which are in most need? This report innovates in putting the community at the heart of proposing transport investments, increasing adaptation and resilience of roads for its most active users: today’s commuters and tomorrow’s public transport users”.

Cecile Texier, Vice President of Sustainable Development at Alstom said

“The Walkability App is proving a useful tool bringing a conversation between citizens and their governments to understand what to do where to improve the safety, accessibility and comfort of active and public transport users. Investments that respond to where concerns have been reported will help create healthier, more sustainable urban environments, benefiting both residents and the planet”.  

Additional Notes

The Walkability App is a mobile phone application participatory mapping tool. It allows people to share how they feel when they walk by reporting both positive and negative experiences. The app is an effective tool for enabling citizens of any age, gender or ability, to share their walking experiences. The Walkability.App is freely available in the Apple Store and Google Play Store and is available in English, Arabic, German, Swedish, Albanian and Spanish.

Walk21 Foundation is a charity registered in the United Kingdom that works internationally to support everyone’s right to walk in a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment by providing evidence, tools, training and accreditation to a global network of concerned communities, politicians, academics and practitioners.  Walk21 helps make cities more walkable to increase access to basic services; enhance road safety and public health; improve gender equality; and ensure accessible, equitable, sustainable transport systems. 

Alstom is supporting Walk21 Foundation with the development of the Walkability App and its practical application in several countries around the world to benefit active and public transport users.

Alstom develops and markets integrated systems that provide the sustainable foundations for the future of transportation. Alstom’s products portfolio ranges from high-speed trains, metros, monorails and trams to integrated systems, customised services, infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility solutions.

Transport for Cairo coordinated the research in Cairo at 8 stations, selected as having the highest onboarding and alighting user numbers in both inner and outer city contexts. The outer stations: Al-Horsary, 6th of October; Ordoneya Terminal,10th of Ramadan; Gas Terminal, South 90th Road, Fifth settlement; and, 6th District, 6th of October.  The Downtown Cairo stations: Alf Maskan Square, Gear AAl Suez, Heliopolis; Adly Street, Azbakeya, Downtown; Bab El Khalk, Moski, Old Cairo; and, Ramses Train Station, El Fagala. 

Six Field Researchers, who worked for four consecutive days during September 2023. Each pair of researchers audited a single location during peak hours (7am – 10am; 3.30pm – 6.30pm and 7pm – 10pm), gathering a total of 1,335 user-perception responses from the 8 areas (approximately 166 people per study area). 

Transport for Cairo is a strategic advisory practice specialised in sustainable urban mobility, established in Egypt in 2015. Their work covers all mobility and transport modes including formal rail and bus passenger services, informal services, shared mobility, micro mobility and active travel. 

NADA Foundation coordinated a public seminar to discuss the report on 7th October 2023 titled “Unlocking the Potential of Walkability in the Greater Cairo Region: Insights from the Walkability App crowd-sourced data.” Representatives from civil society organisations, academics with backgrounds in urban planning and architecture attended. 

The Nada Foundation is an Egyptian non-profit organisation that was established in 2014 to promote a safer, more inclusive, and sustainable mobility through evidence-based solutions. We empower road users, advocate for a swift transition to clean transportation, and strive to create communities that are walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly.

The post Press Release: Improving the walkability of stations to make Cairo a more healthy and sustainable city appeared first on Walk21.

The conference, held annually, draws on the best new research, policy and projects from around the world regarding everyone’s right to walk in a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment. The event also invites speakers to share findings, experiences and successes.

This year, together with experts from across Africa and around the globe, we will share insights and expertise on how to develop and implement walking policies and programmes that deliver walkable communities and safer streets, broader community participation and enhance the value of walking. 

You can read our programme here.

Sponsorship Packages Walk21 Kigali

You have the opportunity to be part of this international event being held for the first time on the African continent. You can know more about our sponsor packages here.

The post All you need to know to join us in Walk21 Kigali appeared first on Walk21.

The Plan is the result of 2 years’ work by the Tiana Walking Task Force, a multidisciplinary team of officers from different departments inside the Municipality as well as representatives from the police, local universities and NGO’s to help make Tirana a more walkable city. 

Walk21 has supported the process throughout, in association with GIZ who are working with the Municipality to create a paradigm shift to a more sustainable transport system for Tirana.

The Action Plan has four goals: to increase the value of walking; reduce road danger; enable accessibility and comfort; and build capacity for delivering measurable benefits to people walking.

Walking is already the main mode for most trips in Tirana, particularly for women who are less likely to have access to a car. However, people walking in Tirana are twice as likely to be in a road traffic collision than the European average and the Task Force found that 80% of citizens want more pedestrian zones, wider foot paths and safer crossings as well as more street trees and benches to make walking safer, easier and nicer.   

At the launch, Deputy Mayor Anuela Ristani said:

“The Municipality already responds to more than 8,000 calls from citizens to improve their walking experience every year, but this new policy includes 33 new proactive commitments so that all the people walking in Tirana feel more valued and supported. This will enable us to improve the walking experience in our city further and further. We know its important, for all of us and for tourists who are attracted to Tirana. Walking is a right, a necessity and makes us free”.

UN Resident Coordinator for Albania , Fiona McCluney added:

“Enabling people to walk helps us to deliver on many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including more sustainable and accessible cities, better gender and income equity and safer and healthier communities. Improving conditions for people walking is a regional issue and Tirana has a lot to share”.

Jim Walker, from Walk21 said:

“This Action Plan is important now because it focuses, for the first time, on an evidence-based approach to ensure targeted actions keep people on their feet. Using the Walkability App – which is now available in Albanian – citizens have told us what the like about walking in Tirana and where they need improvements to resist their temptation to otherwise motorise. We are delighted that the Task Force, led by the Deputy Mayor, are committed to maintaining Tirana’s walking culture as a foundation to the Albanian quality of our life.”

Christian Mettkte, Project Director of the Sustainable Urban Transport Project in Tirana of GIZ Albania said:

“Walking, cycling and public transport – we are happy to support the Municipality of Tirana in all of these areas. Walking is so fundamental, yet often over-looked. Working with Walk21 and the colleagues of the Municipality, we developed the Walking Policy as a framework for the activities on the ground. The School Streets, which are being implemented are a very concrete improvement for many pedestrians. We are happy that the City committed to establish a active mobility team which will coordinate walking and cycling activities in the future”.

The Walking Tirana Action Plan can also be found here. 

The post Tirana Walking Action Plan launched appeared first on Walk21.

This consortium has the following key objectives:

1. Safe vehicles
2. Safe speeds
3. Safe roads
4. Post-crash care
5. Safe road users

This week, Trans-Safe partners met for a 2-day project meeting in Potsdam, Berlin. Reports say that 36% of the road injuries in Africa happen while walking. Jim Walker, Director, Walk21 Foundation presented how the Walkability app can be used at the most dangerous places in the cities to help plan new interventions and save lives.

You can read more about the project at the website here.

The next project meeting of Trans-Safe will be conducted in Kigali, Africa at the Walk21 Kigali Conference in October 2023. 

Downloads

A case study conducted using the Walkability App: Women’s perceived walkability at the Luas Tram catchment area in Dublin is available for download.

The post Trans-Safe Africa: How to Radically Transform Road Safety in Africa appeared first on Walk21.

More than four-fifths of ITF countries boast walking policies and 41% have a related strategy, while 45% have a cycling policy but just one in five have a cycling strategy in place says the report ‘National Policies for Walking and Cycling in ITF Countries.’ The report is the first ever combined report that analyses walking and cycling policies in the 64 ITF member countries.

Almost all walking and cycling policies include commitments to the five key PATH calls to action to improve infrastructure, integrate with public transport, improve land use planning, coordinate campaigns, and commit to capacity building. The report highlights that translating policy into meaningful action requires dedicated staff, funding and evaluation. More than twice as many countries have committed funding to the delivery of cycling policy (76%) than walking (28%).

“PATH partners seek to unlock walking and cycling’s potential to accelerate the achievement of climate goals and other benefits, through greater prioritisation and investment including through national strategies and other policy instruments. Therefore it seemed fitting on the occasion of the ITF Summit to prepare a national policy analysis for walking and cycling in ITF countries,” said Walk21 CEO Bronwen Thornton.

Jill Warren, CEO of the European Cyclists’ Federation, said: “This report serves as a useful baseline for active mobility in ITF countries and a valuable resource for policy and decision-makers and advocates alike. PATH partners hope it will catalyse further action by countries in favour of walking and cycling.”

Sheila Watson, Deputy Director of the FIA Foundation which funds PATH and supported this research, said: “A truly sustainable mobility paradigm must include sound policies, concrete actions and a much larger share of investment in walking and cycling. This is why the FIA Foundation is proud to support the activities of PATH and the creation and launch of this report, which will help inform countries’ further commitments to enable more people to walk and cycle safely.”

Downloads

The report is available for download now.

The post Report: ITF countries could do better for walking and cycling, says PATH report appeared first on Walk21.

The series is organised by Dr Tamara Bozovic in partnership with Walk21 and a core coordinating team including Szening Ooi, Nancy Mitchelson, Louise Reardon, Josephine Roper, Belen Iturralde, Carlos Canas, and Alan Meharry.

We propose the need of a platform to share ideas and discuss a shared approach to measure and improve the quality of the walking environment. This shared approach will help enable walking to contribute to the “quantum leap in climate action”, to urgently improve the safety and user experience of those who already walk and reduce current inequities of access. 

We would like to invite you to a workshop series – “Stepping stones for better walking environments” – aimed at accelerating discussions and building knowledge of the quality of the walking environment.

The topics for the workshop series are: 

• Why improve walking environments?
  Building a shared understanding of the ways in which the quality of the street environment influences behaviours 
• Where to improve walking environments?
  Tools and best practice for measuring quality
  
• How to improve walking environments?
  Applying an evidence-based approach to policy and governance practices 

A short note will be shared after each workshop, and the outcome of the whole process is to be brought to the Walk21 conference (Kigali, October 2023) and disseminated as a short publication.

We hope to see you in the workshops! If you have any questions, please contact Dr Tamara Bozovic, tamara.bozovic@uwe.ac.uk.

Registrations

Attendance is free. Please indicate your interest below. 

The post Workshop Series: Stepping Stones for Better Walking Environments appeared first on Walk21.