Urban walkability is influenced both by built environment features and by pedestrian demographics. Research has shown that factors influencing women’s walking differ from those affecting men’s. Using a mixed-method approach, this study creates a new women-specific, GIS-based walkability index using San Francisco as a case study, and answers two questions: Which variables most influence women’s propensity to walk? And Does the leading walkability index, Walk Score, reflect women’s walkability? Focus group participants (n=17) ranked crime, homelessness and street/sidewalk cleanliness as the three most influencing factors on women’s walkability, accounting for 58% to 67% of the Women’s Walkability Index’s total score. The least walkable areas in San Francisco, according to this index, are rated as some of the most walkable neighborhoods in the city by Walk Score, despite high crime and homelessness density. Walk Score is negatively correlated with the new Women’s Walkability Index (Spearman’s rho = -0.585) and inaccurately represents women’s walkability. If the new index accurately captures the reality of women’s walking, then some of the most widely accepted conventions about what kind of areas promote walking could be inaccurate when it comes to women.

中文翻译：

---

性别可步行性：为女性建立白天可步行性指数

城市的步行能力受建筑环境特征和行人人口统计的影响。研究表明，影响女性走路的因素与影响男性的因素不同。本研究使用混合方法，以旧金山为案例研究，创建了一个新的基于女性的，基于GIS的步行能力指数，并回答了两个问题：哪些变量最能影响女性的步行倾向？领先的步行能力指数“步行得分”是否能反映出女性的步行能力？焦点小组参与者（n = 17）将犯罪，无家可归和街道/人行道清洁度列为影响女性步行能力的三个最主要因素，占妇女步行能力指数总分的58％至67％。根据该指数，旧金山最不宜步行的区域，尽管犯罪率高且无家可归者人数众多，但仍被步行分数评为该市最宜居的社区。步行得分与新的女性步行能力指数（Spearman的rho = -0.585）负相关，并且不准确地代表了女性的步行能力。如果新的指标准确地反映了女性步行的现实，那么关于女性在哪些领域促进步行的一些最普遍的惯例可能是不准确的。