Identify what residents, tenants, or tourists find appealing about the area. Maintain these qualities and strengthen the visual character of the area and its surroundings through preservation, new construction or renovations. Elements such as street trees, architecture, construction materials, street signs or setbacks all contribute to a sense of character and scale and, therefore, a more inviting pedestrian environment.
Priority of Implementation
Communities face tough decisions about the best use of limited capital improvement funds. This section includes policies to guide investment priorities.
Use these policies and guidelines to prioritize capital improvement program investment.
A basic premise of these guidelines is that all pedestrian facilities should be designed to be safe; and that these facilities should be located where ever people walk. This concept should be used to guide priorities in the capital budget process. Determining if a facility is safe and available where people walk can be accomplished through the application of the roadside conditions and latent demand analysis included in the Design Guidance section of this document.
Create public-private partnerships to plan and fund linking pedestrian/bicycle networks to a regional off-street systems.
Projects that have strong public/private support should be viewed as high priority for funding. Over the past decade, the Maricopa Trail, West Valley Rivers Recreation Corridor, Central Arizona Project Canal, Indian Bend Wash, SRP operated canals, Rio Salado, and power and gas line corridors have been identified by Maricopa County and the cities and towns within the County as well as civic organizations, such as Valley Forward Partnership, as regional assets. These entities have taken steps forward to create partnerships and coordinate and connect these and other open spaces, canals, washes, rivers, and other corridors for key regional shared use trails. A final step in the effort to make the region more pedestrian friendly is to recognize the non-recreational pedestrian destinations to these regional routes and connect them, through on-street and other systems, to regional commercial, residential and entertainment destinations.
Community Participation
This section describes events that can be sponsored by a municipality, civic or neighborhood organizations or private entity such as a hospital or health clubs to foster a greater sense of community and encourage people to get out, walk, and discover their neighborhood on a level other than the automobile.
Encourage or sponsor community and other walking events.
Encourage frequent community events co-sponsored by merchants, with pedestrian activities such as street entertainers, vendor carts and sidewalk sales. Types of events can include walking tours of the neighborhood, block parties, cuisine festivals, cultural awareness, or charity tournaments/races.
Although the Victoria, Canada International Walking Festival name is relatively new, the event itself has been in existence for seven years under its former umbrella name, Victoria International Blossom Walks. The Victoria International Walking Festival is one of 22 world-class walking festivals sanctioned by the International Walking Association (IWA), formerly known as the International Marching League (IML). Vancover, Washington sponsors an annual Discovery Walk, now in its seventh year. These types of events, in addition to raising awareness of walking, contribute to increasing the visibility of the region and attracting tourist dollars.
