Walkability for Women and the 15- minute City Framework: The STEP UP Project
Creators: name: Choubassi, Rawad
name: Gorrini, Andrea
name: Gargiulo, Carmela
name: Guida, Carmen
name: Andreola, Florencia Natalia
name: Muzzonigro, Azzurra
name: Gargiulo, Eleonora
name: Walker, Jim
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Urban planning
Accessibility
Gender Inclusion
Milan
GIS

description: Advanced urban and transport planning activities are shifting towards sustainable urban mobility solutions and walkability (Buhrmann, Wefering and Rupprecht, 2019), namely referring to how friendly the urban environment is for walking in terms of proximity service availability (i.e., <em>15-min city</em>), street connectivity, comfort of public spaces, and road safety. Although traditional approaches tend to focus on the spatial dimension, individual characteristics of city users are found to have a significant impact on the perceived level of walkability. In particular, the measures currently in place do not sufficiently consider population groups in vulnerable situations (i.e., <em>SDG 11.2-Sustainable Transport for All</em>) (United Nations, 2016), including women. The research project ‘STEP UP - Walkability for Women in Milan' (awarded by Fondazione Cariplo under the call “INEQUALITIES RESEARCH” - Grant No. 2022-1643, focuses on the needs and expectations of women while walking. As highlighted by Golan et al. (2019), women experience the city differently than men, in part because they are more concerned with security issues related to aggression and harassment. These constraints take the form of precautionary or avoidance behaviors due to fear of violence, perception of risk, and sense of vulnerability, as a major inhibitor of mobility for women in public spaces especially at nighttime. STEP UP aims to assess the level of walkability for women focusing on the case study of Milan, Italy. First, a thematic literature review will be conducted on the most relevant scientific contributions and policy guidelines about this topic. The results of the literature review will be exploited to select a series of relevant geolocated datasets, which will be retrieved, sorted, and filtered from open data repositories and geoportals. Data regarding the perceived level of safety of women while walking will be collected through ‘Wher' - a route planner application operated by Walk21 Foundation. All these gender-disaggregated data sets will be analyzed through GIS-Geographic Information Systems to design a multi-layer map of Milan focused on several walkability criteria, which will be then validated through survey questionnaires and focus groups. The results of the project will help to identify challenging areas or neighborhoods in the city of Milan, which can serve as samples of analysis to develop a set of policy recommendations aimed at enhancing the level of walkability for women in cities. <strong>References</strong> Buhrmann, S., Wefering, F., Rupprecht, S. (2019). Guidelines for Developing and implementing a sustainable urban mobility plan – 2nd edition. Rupprecht Consult-Forschung und Beratung GmbH. Available at: https://www.eltis.org/mobility-plans/sump-guidelines Golan, Y., Wilkinson, N., Henderson, J.M., and Weverka, A. (2019). Gendered walkability: Building a daytime walkability index for women. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2019.1472 United Nations (2016). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations Secretariat. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda