中国城市活力中心的街道步行环境指数测度.

The existing studies concerning walkability mainly focus on the characteristics of the built environment that could encourage walking. However, few discussions have been reported regarding the influence of the street environment on walking experiences. In this study, a walking environmental assessment method was proposed, involving the nine indexes of crossing facilities, street planting, building aspect ratio, street furniture, isolation for non-motor vehicles, width of the sidewalk, illegal parking, sidewalk disrepair, and bike-exclusive lanes. This method was applied to evaluate the walking environment of 12740 city streets in 71 urban vitality centres of 50 typical Chinese cities by combining street images and virtual audits. In addition, the practical problems, causes, and strategies behind the scores were analyzed. The empirical results validate the feasibility of the proposed method in revealing problems of the walking environment in Chinese cities. Research conclusions provide suggestions to refine urban planning and management of non-motorized traffic systems in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]