Priorities of Pedestrian-oriented Affordance in City Streets, Case Study: Comparison of Six Streets of the Central Fabric of Hamedan

Today, the physical development of cities, the traffic volume, environmental pollution and general health of the citizens are the consequences of car-based approach in contemporary cities. With the entry of vehicles into different areas of the city, we see the subsequent interaction of cavalry and infantry due to the lack of sidewalks and walking spaces which impacts citizens’ health. Also, in the past few years, the significant reduction of walking activities has been considered as a safety hazard in medical science. Therefore, recent research on health that focused on physical activity and nutrition, as the most important factor affecting general health, have shown that walking is a valuable physical activity that can lead to general health of the community. However, in contemporary urban planning, pedestrian traffic and the normal rights of pedestrians, urban planners and planners are ignored and pedestrian roads are considered as a part of the vehicular movement rather than urban spaces. In fact, in the urban planning tradition, planning for vehicles has always been the planning priority. On the other hand, topics such as healthy city, walkable city, and sustainable city, which have been debated in modern urban planning in recent decades, have made urban managers to a have a new look to transportation system and prioritization of pedestrian-orinted design in urban spaces.In this paper, after defining and reviewing the history urban streets design approaches and different viewpoints of theorists such as Lynch, Jacobs, Appleyard and others, the history of the emergence of the pedestrian-orinted streets in Europe and Iran will be discussed. Then, the successful examples of pavements in the world and Iran are examined. According to experts such as Halperin, Gehl and Jacobs. The measures of pedestrian-orinted capability are defined in urban streets. The benchmarking indicators in this study have been based on field studies and studies of pedestrian design, which are detailed in the research theoretical fundamentals. Then some criteria are defined based on these indices. Finally, a conceptual model of the study is presented. According to this model, factors influencing the pedestrian-orinted capability in urban streets are categorized into two human and physical factors. The built environment is the most important factor in motivating people to embark on urban streets. Even those who enjoy taking a walk will walk further if there good places are available for walk. On the other hand, the design of the physical environment can encourage those who have a negative attitude toward walking. Therefore, the most important factors influencing the possibility of pedestrian-orinted functionality in pedestrian spaces and physical environments can be considered as the keypoints for prioritization of pedestrian-oriented design to encourage walking directions. The following can be mentioned as the most important physical factors: structural, aesthetic, functional and environmental factors. Among the human factors, one can mention collective memories, sense of place, security and social interactions.Although the pedestrian-orinted design is not a new topic, it is an interesting aspects of this research to consider the urban structure of the city of Hamedan with its six streets as pedestrian-orinted streets. Although all six streets are constructed in a certain period of time and are similar in terms of organization, all six streets can not be completely pedestrian-orinted simultaneously. Accordingly, this research will provide an appropriate strategy for urban planners to take the necessary measures in order to prioritize the development of the six streets by adopting appropriate measures in a long-term process.This article aims to define the streets and sidewalks and their formation histories, and uses archival research methods. A survey is prepared by a questionnaire with 37 questions from 382 pedestrians in six streets that start from Imam Square in Hamedan to assess and measure the spatial quality promotion of streets and to find the environmental variables influencing the level of activities. The results of the study show that the physical factors of main structural factors, functional factors, aesthetic factors, environmental factors and human factors consisting of safety, social interaction, sense of place and collective memory are the influential factors in prioritizing the pedestrian-oriented capability of city streets. According to results, the physical parameters should be prioritized on of Bu-Ali, Shariati, Takhti, Baba Taher, Ecbatan and Shohada Street respectively, and human indicators on Bu-Ali, Shariati, Baba Taher, Ecbatan, Shohada and Takhti Street should be prioritized.