Green Line Walkability Survey
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What is the Green Line Walkability Survey?
Transportation models forecast 40,000 weekday riders by 2030. Models also predict that 68% of all Green Line riders will be walking to their stations — in the case of the Dale Street Station it is 80% — and that riders may walk up to a half mile or more to reach their station.
Clearly, achieving Green Line ridership projections will depend on riders who walk to the stations, yet residents have identified many concerns about safety and the physical condition of the pedestrian realm.
In station area planning workshops, many residents talked about unfriendly pedestrian environments, missing sidewalks, poor lighting and unsafe street crossings. Problems such as these are especially prevalent in neighborhoods with a history of disinvestment and large numbers of people who are transit dependent. This creates an inequality in the pedestrian realm, making it more difficult for those with the greatest need, including the elderly, disabled, and families with children to access public transit.
The DCC undertook the Green Line Walkability Survey as a community-based initiative to develop and implement well-informed strategies to close this gap. Working closely with elected officials, public transportation staff, and nonprofit organizations with pedestrian and transit expertise, the DCC designed a survey with a four-fold purpose:
- to motivate people to walk to their future light rail station and to engage them in a process to make improvements;
- to gather on-the-ground, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, concrete feedback from residents about the walking environment;
- to use data collected through the survey to inform and add detail to general plans for pedestrian realm improvements in station areas and throughout the corridor; and
- to advance work with community members, public officials, and the private sector to establish priorities and implement improvements.
