Walk21 Hong Kong 2016

Hong Kong, 2016

In October 2016 we delivered the paper “Walking to school with Walkability City Tool” at Walk21 Hong Kong.

Making the trip from home to school should be a daily experience that contributes to a child’s health, self-sufficiency, relationship with and understanding of the city, and a sense of integration, with the greatest possible number of positive stimuli along the route.

The Walkability City Tool assigns a score to each stretch of pavement and to each crossing. When applied to a School Route, the weighting of the different factors takes into account the way in which they affect children in particular, both positively and negatively.

We need to change our point of view to realise how cities work for children, how they perceive it when they walk, put ourselves in their shoes to understand the kind of spaces they need in order to move around them in a safe and pleasant manner.

After entering the points of origin (home) and destination (school), the routes are drawn up taking into account the best pavement and crossing scores, without compromising the distance travelled. These routes are analysed to identify black spots, alternatives, potentialities, improvements…

The Walkability City Tool allows smart design of school routes, ensuring they are not only safe, but also comfortable, suitably adapted, pleasant, motivating and inspiring for children.