Walking to the Metro: Designing Streets People Actually Want to Walk

Thanh Tu Tran

Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

30-05-2026

© Ryan Wu

Before people board a metro train, they must first reach the station. This seemingly simple journey—walking from home, work, or school to a transit stop—is often treated as a minor detail in urban transportation planning. Yet growing evidence suggests that the quality of this short walk can significantly influence whether people choose public transit at all (Lanza et al., 2020; Ha et al., 2023).

Cities around the world are investing heavily in urban rail transit (URT) systems to reduce traffic congestion, lower emissions, and promote sustainable mobility. However, the success of these systems depends not only on trains and stations but also on the pedestrian environments that connect people to them. Wide roads, narrow sidewalks, poor lighting, and unsafe crossings can make even a nearby station feel inaccessible (Kathuria et al., 2019; Basu & Sevtsuk, 2022).

A recent study published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment explored this issue in Guiyang, China. Using visual route-choice experiments involving 651 transit users, researchers examined how people evaluate different walking routes to metro stations during both daytime and nighttime. The findings revealed clear preferences. During the day, pedestrians favored routes with narrower vehicle lanes, wider sidewalks, and greenery such as trees and hedges. At night, adequate lighting and stronger forms of surveillance—both natural and technological—became particularly important. Preferences also varied according to age, gender, and primary travel mode (Liu & Neisch, 2026).

At first glance, these findings may appear straightforward: people prefer routes that feel comfortable and safe. Yet the results also reveal a deeper insight about how cities can accommodate multiple human needs simultaneously.

The concept of cultural additivity offers a useful lens for understanding this challenge. Cultural additivity proposes that societies do not necessarily replace one value system with another. Instead, they often combine elements from different value systems, even when those values appear contradictory. In many East Asian societies, for example, values associated with individual well-being, collective harmony, practical utility, and social order frequently coexist rather than compete (Anh, 2026; Khuc & Nguyen, 2026).

The pedestrian preferences observed in the Guiyang study reflect a similar pattern. Green, tree-lined walkways satisfy aesthetic and psychological desires for comfort and connection with nature. Wide sidewalks support individual mobility and convenience. Meanwhile, surveillance measures and lighting address collective concerns about safety and social order. Rather than choosing between freedom and security, or between environmental quality and transportation efficiency, pedestrians appear to value environments that integrate all of these qualities.

This insight has important implications for urban planning. Transit infrastructure is often designed through a narrow engineering lens focused on moving people efficiently from one place to another. Yet human travel decisions are shaped by a broader set of cultural and psychological considerations. A route that is technically efficient but perceived as unsafe or unpleasant may remain underused.

The Guiyang study suggests that successful transit-oriented development requires more than building rail lines. It requires creating access routes that harmonize multiple values at once. In this sense, pedestrian-friendly streets are not merely transportation infrastructure. They are spaces where environmental sustainability, personal comfort, social trust, and public safety can coexist.

As cities continue expanding their transit networks, the path to sustainable mobility may begin not on the train itself, but on the sidewalk leading to it (Vuong, 2025; Nguyen, 2026).

References

Anh, T. T. M. (2026). Chương trình máy tính Bayesvl: Từ thuật toán thống kê đến nhịp cầu ngoại giao khoa học. https://vjst.vn/chuong-trinh-may-tinh-bayesvl-tu-thuat-toan-thong-ke-den-nhip-cau-ngoai-giao-khoa-hoc-86721.html

Basu, R., & Sevtsuk, A. (2022). How do street attributes affect willingness-to-walk? City-wide pedestrian route choice analysis using big data from Boston and San Francisco. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 163, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2022.06.007

Ha, J., et al. (2023). Mode choice and the first-/last-mile burden: the moderating effect of street-level walkability. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 116, 103646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2023.103646

Kathuria, A., et al. (2019). Examining walk access to BRT stations: a case study of ahmedabad BRTs. ITE Journal, 89(5), 43-49. https://trid.trb.org/View/1604615 

Khuc, V. Q., & Nguyen, M. H. (2026). Cultural Additivity Theory. Available at SSRN 6767760. https://ssrn.com/abstract=6767760 

Lanza, K., et al. (2020). Transit environments for physical activity: Relationship between micro-scale built environment features surrounding light rail stations and ridership in Houston, Texas. Journal of Transport & Health, 19, 100924. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2020.100924

Liu R., & Neisch, P. M. (2026). Transit users’ preferences for street infrastructure during daytime and night-time walking. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 157, 105394. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2026.105394

Nguyen, M.-H. (2026). Ayn Rand and Kingfisher on zero-carbon bombs and a sustainable future. Visions for Sustainability, 25(13474), 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/13474  

Vuong, Q. H. (2025). Wild Wise Weird. AISDL. https://books.google.com/books?id=C5dDEQAAQBAJ