This document summarizes interviews with experienced practitioners on creating walkable communities. It discusses that communities should be engaged through inclusive processes to develop a shared vision and identify champions. It also stresses the importance of listening to communities and addressing their real concerns. Additionally, it notes that walkability requires changes to both projects and policies, such as implementing "gateway projects" to demonstrate walkable design, prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and aligning rules and funding incentives to support walkable development. The overall message is that successful walkability requires addressing both the social and built environment aspects of a place.

2. Making Walkability Happen: Practice wisdom, derived principles and ideas for action
M. Katherine Kraft, Ph.D.
September 9, 2014

3. •Purpose: Use practice wisdom to identify actions that are essential for developing walkability
•Interviews with seasoned practitioners with recognized successes (“tribal elders”)
-Reflect on successful projects and identify factors that made them successful
-Identify key characteristics of walkable communities
•Interviewed to date
Purpose and Methods
Dan Burden
Victor Dover
Mark Fenton
Pete Lagerway
Lauren Marchetti
John Moffat
John Norquist
Jeff Olson
Lynn Richards
Jennifer Toole
Gary Toth
Charlie Zegeer

4. Developmental Phases to create walkability
Getting Starting and Engaging Community
Assessment
Planning and Priorities
Policies, Zoning and Design Guidelines
Institutionalization, Incentives and Market-based

5. Effective Approaches and Tactics
Getting Started
Listen and Vision
Develop Champion and Vision

6. Walkability Principles
-Guidelines for practice
-Expedite outcomes
-Integrate our work

7. Defining Walkability
•The extent to which the built and social environment is safe, convenient, and attractive to people living, shopping, enjoying or spending time in an area on foot.
•“We want to build a place that people love.”
•“The places we love were not created as a solution to a traffic problem, they were created to bring joy to humanity.”

8. What we learned – general observations
Optimistic
“The wind is behind our sails, our task is to figure out how to use it.”
Top down, decide, announce and defend no longer works
“..most successful community change agents are those that listen and inspire.”

9. What we learned – ideas and actions
Process: How you work with communities
Project: Necessary features/elements
Policies: How we sustain them

10. How you work with communities: Community Engagement, Cultivating Champions, Finding Vision keepers and Empowering Leaders
“Community members are the true experts of where they live.”

11. How you work with communities?
Listen and Frame
Inclusive Process
Vision and Values
Leadership Matters
No One Size Fits All

12. Listen and Frame
Listen to the community and respect the local community traditions and norms
“Make no assumption about what the answer should be.”
“Understand the real community concerns and frame the issue in a way that addresses these concerns.”
“Get a good grounding in the social context of the place.”

13. An Inclusive Process is Vital
•“A multi-disciplinary team is useful, do not stay in one sector, broaden thinking.”

14. Vision and Values
Talk about the community vision and values – describe the place in 50 years and 100 years into the future
“One should not do anything in a place if it doesn’t advance the community vision.”
“Best advice is focus on community building and placemaking, then walkability and livability will follow.”

15. Leadership Matters
Empower a champion, Find a Vision Keeper
“Make it somebody’s job.”
“I think it really comes down to leadership. Leadership in two areas, one that represents political will, and a project champion – someone that feels strongly. Having that one person who lives, breathes this; is more important than political will. “

16. No One Size Fits All
No single policy solution – No silver bullet
“ Each community has its own traditions, its own culture, its coming from a place already, ….Acknowledge that every single community is going to have a slightly different starting point..respect that and build off of that instead of trying to one size fits all. “

17. Projects
“Walkability does not appear to happen organically. The machinery of development and re- development will not take you there without a conscious effort.”

18. Gateway Projects
•Use temporary and lighter, quicker, cheaper projects to show what is possible.
•“We have a mismatch between how people really want to live and the rules and regulations that guide development and land use.”

19. “Slow the the traffic”
“Make the streets beautiful”
“Streets are places, return to their multiple purposes.”
“It doesn’t really matter what the question is, the answer is a good street network and bringing the buildings to the street.”

20. Policies and Incentives
•Change the incentive structure so that we move away from auto dependency
•The rules and the money have to steer the community toward healthier designs

21. In the words of our elders…
“It is not technical….we need the real essence of a social movement, to begin to function like a movement and support one another. Hundreds of advocacy groups pushing own little niche, try to create a broader movement.”

22. Process Principles: Big Idea
•Engage everyone possible, and find champions to push it forward, and eventually create collective community ownership of the vision and the process to get there.

23. Project Principles: Big Idea
•Mixed land use, an active transportation network, and human scale design that is appealing, safe, and universally accessible are central to walkable, livable places
–Gateway Projects
–Job descriptions

24. Policy Principles: Big Idea
•The rules and the money have to steer the community toward healthier designs
–zoning ordinance must require and reward compact, mixed-use development
– Roadway design guidelines must fully reflect Complete Streets principles and should create a transportation hierarchy of walking, cycling, transit, and motorized vehicles, in that order
–MPO funding scoring for projects should emphasize the active transportation modes

25. –Transportation plans and forecasts can not just focus on motor vehicle Level of Service and projections, but must also consider pedestrian, bicycle, and transit Levels of Service
–Parking policies must require that parking “pay for itself”