A planning tool - get around

This post links to my previous post "I can walk".
It is true that I am getting around mostly on foot. The walk that I commonly engage in is from home to work and back. Yesterday, I had an insight based on three weeks of walking in Portland and I thought I should share it.

My insight seems quite obvious. It is something that allowed me in the first place to effectively present an alternate street design for New Delhi's Tamil Sangam Marg at the Young Urban Leader's competition which brought me to Portland. This was a street I used almost everyday, to walk and take transit and drive my car, and I knew exactly what each road user dealt with while navigating the road.
So here is my advice to all planners and city managers:

Using a mode of travel, really using it, can allow you to understand exactly what hurdles a user would encounter.

Why this insight struck me yesterday was that after three weeks of walking in the same neighbourhood, covering a large number of permutations and combinations of streets and avenues, I realised that I had started to understand some of the road use patterns. I knew that the NE 21st and NE 15th Avenues had heavy car traffic at all times of day. I instinctively knew to avoid the Knott and NE 21st intersection for crossing as this would have the heaviest car traffic. I tried to cross Broadway only at a pedestrian crossing or signal as this was a main street. I loved walking along Tillamook and Klickitat becasuse of them being bicycle only strips. I realised there were some blocks I liked better because of the architecture and the flowers and lawns and I would prefer walking along those.

Basically, my insight suggests that once you actively use a mode to get along from one point to another, on a daily basis, eventually you can discover all that is good and bad. You can design interventions accordingly. For instance, in the entire neighbourhood, there are pedestrian signals only along the 15th, because this is the place that requires coordinating car, bike and pedestrian movement due to heavy traffic flow. Also, regulations like disconnection of downspouts for stormwater management on streets have a very good impact on pedestrians. Moreover, it is a good idea to place bright green caution signs at turns that are close to children's play areas. Some flowers and trees are better in terms of the flowers that drop, the fragrance that is emanated and the mess they may create.

So the next time a planner decides to place a sidewalk along that bus stop, I would suggest that they get off and walk for a while before deciding on actual interventions. And also talk to actual users. My supervisor Lake, for instance, who is the Active Transportation Project Manager at Metro, bikes to work everyday and knows exactly what the problems are. And still, when she interacted with me (a new bike user) it became obvious to her that there were other concerns that could be dealt with.

So please, experience it and talk to "experts" before you design! Its the simplest and most inexpensive planning tool I can offer.