“All this while, we have designed our cities for cars. Therefore, our pathways for pedestrians, for example, have always been designed (at the) last-minute or are not part of the design component in city planning,” said former Land Public Transport Commission official Wan Agyl Wan Hassan.
He called for more research and analysis to gather community feedback and understand traffic flow before coming up with a city planning strategy to improve walkability.
Jaime Parsons, principal adviser on urban design at City of Hobart, called for the “DMA” method, involving a consideration of density, mix and access, to be used to understand how the development of towns and cities impact the ability to walk to places.
Speaking at the World Class Sustainable Cities conference in Kuala Lumpur last week, Parsons said the term “density” involved both residential and employment density.
“Mix” refers to complementary functions and primary uses such as residential, retail and hospitality, while “access” refers to the number and type of streets used for connections, he said.
He said “comfort” should be added as a metric in the DMA method, as studies have shown that it is one of the main drivers of walkability.
“You might have all the three other ingredients already, but if you have many slopes, if you have very narrow and broken footpaths, if you have no protection from the sun, you are less likely to walk,” he said.
To improve on the comfortability aspect, Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin said more shady trees should be planted along walkways to make them more conducive to walking in Malaysia’s tropical weather.
Wan Agyl called for wider walkways with proper lighting, sitting areas and curbside designs to allow access for people with disabilities.
Penang Planning Appeal Board member Amir Fawzi Baharudin said authorities need to be research-minded and possess proper knowledge to efficiently improve walkway conditions.
Speaking to FMT later, Parsons said one of the easiest ways to further improve walkability is to increase the connectivity of walkways at public transportation stations to surrounding neighbourhoods and activity centres.
“That’s where the concept of permeability is important, along with cyclomatic numbers, (because) sometimes, to put it simply, the more streets and the more connections you have, the more likely you are to walk,” he said.
Sim said stations must be designed for last-mile connectivity, especially with proper walkways.
He also encouraged stakeholders to come together and start a movement to urge the government for change.
“We must form a coalition of NGOs, political leaders, city councillors, planners and resident associations to fight for walkable pedestrian streets in cities and form more livable cities,” he said.