People have a right to access affordable, high-quality transportation, including safe walking options. Below you can find data sources to help determine your access levels.
ACCESS TO safe walk options
According to the EPA, walkable neighborhoods encourage people to be more active, helping them stay healthier. Increased walkability of neighborhoods can increase overall public health benefits. When people choose to walk, bike, or take transit, they drive less, which reduces pollution from vehicles and improves human and environmental health. Additionally, compact, walkable neighborhoods can help conserve natural resources and reduce infrastructure costs because more spread-out areas need more land, roads, and utility lines per household. Walkable communities also encourage social interaction, which engenders a sense of community and improves people’s mental health.
Walkability index
It is useful to investigate both walking potential of an area as well as safety of walking options. The EPA’s National Walkability Index map has color-coded categories that indicate the walking potential of an area. Map categories are based on street intersection density, land use diversity, and proximity to transit stops. In other words, it shows whether people in a given area have incentives to walk.
If there are nearby transit stops and a high diversity of land uses, meaning there are a lot of housing, jobs, and consumer goods located close to each other, then people would have more reasons to walk than they would in an area without clustered options.
Street intersection density gives an idea of whether there are already streets leading to those amenities, or places where sidewalks could go.
All of this combines to tell you how important it is that a given area has safe places to walk.
EPA National Walkability Index Instructions: Open Tool > Type your city in the search bar at the top-right of the map, or click and drag on the map itself to find your city. You can see the map legend in the toolbar at the left, which explains the color codes. Green areas indicate a higher walking potential.
The EPA National Walkability Index, however, does not tell you whether there is actually a sidewalk there. There are 2 ways to determine this.
First, see whether your city has a sidewalk inventory (a few cities have them). You can find this it by either searching Google for “[your city’s name] sidewalk inventory” or by contacting your area Geographic Information Systems office. If there is no sidewalk inventory, you can investigate this yourself. Go to that location and notice the following:
Is there a sidewalk?
Are there stoplights that allow time for pedestrians to cross?
Are pedestrian crossings well-marked and visible to drivers?
Pedestrian fatality data can support your assessment of access to safe walk options, as it indicates that someone had a need to walk in a location but did not have a safe place to do so. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System provides a start for this. It can tell you the number of pedestrian fatalities in a county or city for the previous year, as well as the pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 people (which is useful if you’re comparing to other cities with different populations).
NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System Instructions: Open Tool > Under Data Visualization, click Pedestrians > On the left of the screen, click Geography > At the top of the screen, choose your geography (city or county are probably most useful) > At the right of the screen, click under the word State to choose your state from the dropdown menu. You can then click on your county or city to see the number of pedestrian fatalities.
Additional Resources
NHTSA How Walkable is Your Community? Checklist
Page 3: short and long-term action steps to take if your community does not have safe walking options
Page 4: resources, including street design information and walking advocacy organizations.