Everyone knows that if you really want to get to know a city well, you should explore it on foot. This is the best way for visitors to get to know the most beautiful corners, the most secret side streets, the local flair and the real way of life. The pedestrian zones in particular are at the heart of a city with numerous cafés, boutiques and markets found there. The United Kingdom is not known to be a particularly pedestrian-friendly nation, but it’s still worth asking where in Britian comes out on top? Holidu, the search engine for holiday homes, has completed a study to reveal the most pedestrian-friendly cities in the UK. In the current ranking, the percentage of pedestrian zones in relation to the total kilometres of roads was determined.
● Londonderry, Exeter and Gloucester in top 3
● Massive 8.30% difference between top city and bottom
● St Albans at the bottom of the ranking with 0.10%
Methodology:
The data was collected in November 2019 using the Open Street Maps database. The percentage of pedestrian zones from the total length of the pedestrian zones was compared to the total length of the streets. The pedestrian zones were defined with the Open Street Maps tag ‘highway=pedestrian’, while the total length of the streets was selected with the sum of the tags ‘highway=residential’ and ‘highway=pedestrian’
