Looking at the book Walkable City by Jeff Speck already seems give you an idea on what the book might be about. When first reading the book you are given insight on how to better structure a city for walkability. Mr. Speck gives vision on what makes a city a better place for living giving reasons such as usefulness, comfortability, safeness, and significance. The book then talks about ten steps on how to accommodate these reasons.
The first thing I noticed about the chapter Walking, the Urban Advantage is how many kids now are starting to not drive. All of my friends, including me, could not picture not having a car. After coming to college however I have met many people that do not take their car freshman year and instead walk or somehow find ways to get to where they want or need to go. Many people in the older generation are starting to move out of their bigger homes and into smaller residential areas that are more walkable and have good areas of transportation to activities, healthcare, and other places.
When reading Why Johnny Can’t Walk I read that obesity is a big issue in American health and that people steadily getting heavier due to driving. This is disturbing because obesity will lead to an earlier death. The chapter’s main point is that we must be more active in walking in order to be healthy and happy.
In the chapter The wrong color green talks a lot about how much we emit carbon monoxide and even though we might have more electric vehicles just means we tend to travel further which produces as much carbon as a gas vehicle and also generates climate change.
Part II talks about the ten steps of walkability. The first step says to put cars in their place. Speck talks a lot about the cost of roads (both money and environmental) to a city. He tends to put a lot of bad city planning on the city engineer saying that they are ruining cities Main Street.
The next chapter is step: Mix the Uses which mostly talks about getting more housing in the downtown region and making it more walkable at the same time. What find found most interesting about this chapter was when he talked about creating a place that people want and need like parks and farmer’s markets. I have seen many smaller towns here in Arkansas starting to do that.
Step 3: Get the Parking Right gives a better understanding how he parking system in a city works. Not understanding whether this is a good or bad thing but what engrossed me was when he told about the cost. Giving specifications that a parking lot could cost from $4,000 ‘ $40,000 and that when you have several garages the revenue would only pay for the debt of a single new garage.
Step 4: Let Transit Work allowed me to get a better insight on where public transportation is used the most. I was very surprised to find out that New York region used the most public transport in the US.
The next chapter is Step 5: Protect the Pedestrian was very perceptive on how to keep pedestrians safe. Something I read that I liked and agreed with is when there are some sort of barriers in-between the road and the sidewalk.
Step 6: welcome bikes is a very good chapter. I liked how he talks about how building cycling paths in cities will grow. I’ve seen this first hand in smaller communities that are starting to rise up because of bike paths.
The next couple of chapters talk about comfortability. In Step 7: Shape the Spaces he talks about making the sidewalks smaller. Although some of what he talks about I agree but I believe if you have a smaller sidewalk in big cities it will just make it more difficult to get wherever you need to go.
In Step 8: Plant Trees I like how he argues that not only would planting trees help with decreasing accidents with pedestrians but also would make the road ways more beautiful and life in the city seem less stressful.
I don’t like in Step 9: Make Friendly and Unique Faces how he says ‘so that each block contains as many different buildings as reasonably possible’ because I really liked the way England looks where many of the small streets and building look the same.
Finally, in Step 10: Pick Your Winners he talks about how that the downtown is the only part of the city that belongs to everyone so they should put things that appeal to everyone in the city.