Decoding Walkability: A Walkable Communities Glossary

You don't have to be an engineer or land use planner to help make your community walkable. It is important for citizens to be involved! Learning the language of walkability helps you understand what it takes to support a walkable community.

The list below contains words and phrases commonly used when evaluating and improving a community's walkability. The process of improving walkability includes determining which strategies work best for the challenge at hand. Each strategy is evaluated based on a number of factors including location, safety, population, traffic volumes, financial cost, and more.

The definitions below are adapted from Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars: The Citizens' Guide to Traffic Calming. Produced by the Local Government Commission Center for Livable Communities and written by Dan Burden of Walkable Communities, Inc., 2000. This guide is available through the City of Vancouver Transportation Services office and at the Fort Vancouver Regional Library.

ADA-Compliant Design
Improvements mandated under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, to ensure access and mobility for people with physical limitations.

Bicycle Lanes
A dedicated space for bicycle travel on a street designed through striping or colored pavement.

Building orientation
Building orientation refers to where a building is placed in relationship to a street and/or sidewalk. Generally, buildings that face the street and are placed close to the sidewalk are more pedestrian-friendly.

Chicanes
A series of curb extensions that narrow the street to one lane at selected points.

Crosswalk
Crosswalks exist at all intersections whether it is marked or unmarked. By law, motorists are to yield to pedestrians. Marked crosswalks direct pedestrians to a crossing location and help make pedestrian actions more predictable for motorists.

Curb extension
Also called “bulbouts”, curb extensions extend the sidewalk or curb line into the street, reducing the pavement width. Curb extensions may also provide area for landscaping.

Diagonal Back-in Parking
This type of parking lowers the chance of a driver backing out of a parking space and causing a collision. With the car backed in, the car doors open facing the curb, which is safer for the car occupants. The open trunk also faces the curb.

Landscaping Treatments
The careful use of landscaping to provide separation between motorists and pedestrians, reduce the roadway's width, and provide a more pleasant street environment.

Partial Street Closure
Blocking one direction of motor vehicle travel into or out of an intersection.

Pedestrian Lead Interval Signal
A type of crossing signal that directs the pedestrian to begin crossing in advance of the signal for adjacent vehicles.

Refuge Island
A raised island placed in the center of the street at intersection or mid-block locations, allowing pedestrians a place to rest or stop to make a decision about crossing the next side of the road.

Road Diet
A term used to describe the process of implementing traffic calming measures.

Street Furniture
Examples include benches, water fountains, signage, newspaper stands, and poles. Street furniture should be carefully placed to allow for unobstructed paths for pedestrians.

Speed Humps
Designed to reduce vehicle speed, speed humps are typically paved with asphalt, approximately 3-6 inches high at their center and extend the full width of the street

Stop Bar
A painted stripe on a road alerting drivers to stop in advance of a crosswalk.

Traffic Calming
Engineering, education, and enforcement strategies designed to help reduce traffic speeds where appropriate.

Walkability Audit
An exercise that evaluates how pedestrian-friendly a location is by assessing the quality of sidewalks, lighting, traffic speeds, and more.