Who spends more

I have heard about the research on several occasions, but now I know where the report is. The report I am referring to is the Transport for London research into the spending habits of people visiting the London town centres to buy something. The big spenders every month in London town centres are those that walk to the shops, followed by those on public transport. Although people driving to the shops spend more per visit (41 pounds for car drivers versus 26 pounds for walkers), people who walk to the shops visit more often and therefore spend more.

The research should not be misconstrued though. It does not show that people who drive to the shops spend less per month. 78% of car drivers do more shopping outside town centres in shopping centres and so their total monthly retail spend may well be higher.

The results are also skewed by the fact that people within the walking catchment of a town centre are more likely to do all of their shopping within the town centre. Only 60% of people walking to the town centres visit the shopping centres. People further from the town centre would therefore be more likely to only make trips to the town centre on fewer occasions to buy things they cannot buy elsewhere.

What the research does however emphasise is the importance of all modes for access to shops in town centres. I would be interested to see similar research for shopping centres.

The research also looked at peoples attitudes to cycling to town centres for utility trips (i.e. not commuter cyclists). 38% of respondents said that with some interventions, they be encouraged to cycle to the town centre. The main interventions needed were found to be:

• less road traffic - 15%
• more dedicated cycle paths - 15%
• more cycle lanes - 14%

Walk Score

Here is a nice little tool to compare the walkability of an address: www.walkscore.com
The tool uses a simple weighted scoring of distance to amenities such as shops, restaurants, schools, banking etc. to rank how walkable the address is. They have also produced a walkability Heat Map and ranked many US cities.

The tool is fun to play with but has some major limitations that makes comparing addresses not always that useful. Some of these shortfalls that may give strange results are:

• walk-score does not appear to include distance to transit and its frequency in its calculations. It has a separate transit accessibility score (where transit agencies make data publicly available) but this is not included in the walk score. I believe this is a major flaw as the ability to access public transport to employment and major service hubs is a large contributing factor to improving the available amenities within 'walking' distance. Although you may use public transport it does reduce car dependence. 
• Walk score does not include distance to employment opportunities.
• The application is dependent on information being available on the internet. Because of this the city-edge apartment I owned in Pietermaritzburg scored a lower Walk Score that my current mid-suburban home in Brisbane - because most of the amenities within walking distance of my previous apartment are not captured on the web.
• the assessment does not take into account what facilities are available for pedestrians. An address along a major road with no pedestrian facilities would score the same as one within similar distances to amenities but with pathways and crossing facilities.