Examining the safety status of sidewalks adjacent to shopping centers with emphasis on walkability (A case stuy of Sari)

Planning and design of cities based on the needs of pedestrians is one of the new approaches which are paid less attention in planning of the Iranian cities. In most cases priority is given to passing vehicle that jeopardize the safety of the citizens. Safety and security are very crucial in continues presence and collective life in urban space. So the present research aims to examine safety of sidewalks adjacent to shopping centre with emphasis on walkability. The samples are selected from all beneficiaries of two main street of Sari city as Garan and Farhang by conducting a field work to complete the given questionnaires. The collected data are analyzed using SPSS20 and also different statistical such as factor analysis, Freidman and one tailed T test. The results showed that the means of respondents has not essential difference with theoretical mean of 3. So it showed that the citizens have no sufficient safety against vehicles. The results of factor analyses revealed that in general two factors of safety -security and the impact of removing roadway system included about 53.9 percent of total variability of variables. Finally; the ranking of sidewalk safety components showed that creating cultural activities could increase the security and safety of the streets with mean rank of 7.38. The second priority was give to the removing of roadway system with mean of 5.97. So it can be concluded that separation of vehicle system from pedestrian in main shopping centers can help to safety and security.