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By: Shaheen Sobti, Rawal S. Aulakh, and Sakshi Sahni.
1. Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India
2. Assistant Professor, Department of Architectur, Guru Ram Das School of Planning, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India
Commercial areas, along with being nodes for economic activities, also act as public spaces supporting various social and recreational activities. The multi-faceted nature of commercial streets demands safe, secure, and comfortable spaces in commercial areas that can be conducive to the social aspect of this land use. Commercial areas are also nodes for carbon emissions, with transport-related emissions in commercial areas providing a significant contribution to the emission profile. This work provides a study and assessment of the pedestrian environment of a commercial area, taking Putlighar market in Amritsar as a case study. The work analyzes the pedestrian facilities and vehicular emission profile of the case area. Then, a hypothetical scenario-based assessment is adopted to study the impact of pedestrianization and modal restriction on the emission profile. The results highlight that complete pedestrianization provides the best solution for emission reduction; however, even partial pedestrianization can yield emission reduction by 54%. Modal restriction, on the other hand, contributes to an 86% emission reduction if applied for the entire day and a 46% reduction when applied on peak hour traffic. A public preference survey was undertaken to understand public opinion on the proposed scenarios, wherein complete pedestrianization was the most preferred scenario with 39% public preference, followed by full day modal restriction (30%), peak hour modal restriction (16%), and peak hour pedestrianization (15%). The pedestrian audit of the area highlighted that improvement of walking infrastructure, provision of basic amenities, and application of encroachment control regulation were required on site to enhance the walkability of the area and support pedestrianization.
Keywords: Carbon emissions, walkability, pedestrianization, modal restriction, travel behavior
Citation:
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