Ricerc@Sapienza

A strategy that prioritizes health and well-being in cities, based on physical activity, understood above all as a lifestyle that is generally active and practicable every day, is a practice that is accessible to all, able to counteract the sedentary lifestyle and reduce the impact of chronic diseases.
Several authors investigated the characteristics of the neighborhoods able to promote an active lifestyle. A key point is the measure of the link between built environment and physical activity. For that reason, several authors defined specific tools to gauge walkability. Scientific evidence shows that walkability indices vary according to the purpose of the move, the socio-economic characteristics of the residents and the quality of the surrounding environment (quality and decency of the neighborhoods and urban spaces in general, the presence of green spaces, cycle and pedestrian paths, functional mix, numerous intersections of streets, residential density, etc.)
At present, most of the Walkability Indexes (WI) are mainly based on archive data sets, analyzed with GIS, which do not consider the environmental quality of the context. To overcome these limitations, a tool called “Walking Suitability Index of the Territory” (T-WSI) has been developed and it’s described in this paper. The tool, which essentially represents an audit based on direct observation by a trained investigator, is applied to each street of an environmental area in order to measure its walkability. T-WSI includes 12 indicators subdivided into four categories: practicability (sidewalk surface, obstacles, road slope), safety (protection from vehicle speed, road lighting, crossings protection), urbanity (sidewalk width, road equipment, activities), pleasurableness (traf- fic, building context, green). To each category and to the included indicators a different weight is assigned, by reason of its impact on walkability. Data collected in each street are inserted in an algorithm to perform weighted sums and to aggregate the indicators and categories, up to calculate the final index in which the length of each street is included.
The neighbourhood index results as the sum of the weighted averages of the indices of each street.
A field investigation applying T-WSI was conducted in two environmental areas of Rome: “San Saba” and “Sacco Pastore”. The first one is an almost exclusively residential neighbourhood, partly included in the historic city centre, with high urban quality. The second area is in the 20th century consoli- dated city, with a defined building typology and high-density settlements. Both results are around the average values of the adopted scale (0-100), highlighting gaps in the design for pedestrian use of public spaces, especially regarding the protection from vehicles and road equipment.
Among the analyzed categories, Security showed the worst results in both neighborhoods, particularly for the lack of “Protection from vehicle speed”.
Finally, the objective measures detected through the audit were compared with the qualities perceived by the residents using a questionnaire developed in the USA to measure the perceptions of the residents about the environmental characteristics of their neighbourhood (NEWS-A). Both the measurements show quite convergent and superimposable results.
In the general framework of existing walkability indices, T-WSI, an easy to use, sensitive and reproducible tool, could be a good support for decision-making of local health authorities and policymakers, for the development of regeneration projects aimed at the redevelopment of urban voids or deteriorated areas of the cities.