No abstract

There is a well-documented emphasis within transport policy on speed and efficiency, with the benefits of transport schemes frequently assessed in these terms. The focus on reducing journey times is also evident in pedestrian policy, with the ‘time-saving’ attributes of walking often promoted. However, this emphasis on speed within the transport policy arena reflects linear understandings of time as nothing more than ‘clock time’ passing. In contrast, this paper explores the multiple forms of temporality and spatiality that emerge out of and shape urban pedestrian movement. The discussion draws upon in-depth interview and diary data from fieldwork undertaken in London, and in so doing provides a ‘timely’ empirical engagement with theoretical understandings of time and space. Within this examination of the multiple temporalities of urban walking, it is suggested that people become aware of the experiential dimensions of time when they are made to wait. The paper moves on to explore the issues of physical mobility difficulties in the context of highlighting the multiple spatialities of walking, and attention is also drawn to how people use temporal and spatial concerns to frame their identities as to who they are in relation to others. It is suggested that notions of rhythm provide a productive means for engaging with how time, space, and identity interrelate as people walk.

Concerns with walking cut across both policy and academic arenas, ranging from its promotion as a significant mode of sustainable transport to it being drawn upon as an artistic practice. However, there remains a disconnection between different bodies of research addressing different dimensions associated with walking, whereby a distinction can be drawn between understanding walking as a topic and subject to research and drawing upon walking as a method of enquiry. This paper aims to critically explore some of the multiple areas of work on walking, and in so doing proposes an increased dialogue between, and wider acknowledgement of, different modes of enquiry relating to pedestrian practices. More specifically the paper explores policy concerns with pedestrian movement; how walking is situated within writings concerning the democratic possibilities of urban public space; its role in performative engagements with the city; pedestrian movement as a means of reading/knowing urban space; and the relationship between walking and art. In so doing, the potential is explored for how these forms of engagement with walking translate into, or provide a medium for, the broader concerns of those such as policymakers as to who walks and why.

Abstract. Much urban and transport policy is based on a series of assumptions relating to predefined journeys informed by rational decision making. For example, the dominant focus of urban pedestrian policy is how the built environment is the primary influence on a person's decision to walk, with these decisions being made at a specific time and place somehow outside the practice of walking. Little attention is given to the importance of the processual and experiential dimensions of walking itself. This paper considers the ways in which journeys into, and through, the city unfold. Specific attention is drawn to how forms of habitual performance, such as practical knowledge and embodied habits and routines, assist in engaging with everyday urban movements. In the context of in-depth research conducted in London, the paper explores the habits and routines of urban pedestrian mobilities such as the daily commute, and in so doing, highlights the complexity and ongoing reconfiguration of these journeys beyond analysis informed by`rational' intention. In contrast to much transport research that conceives of habit as an external force that somehow obstructs more positive sustainable travel behaviour, discussion focuses on the significance of how everyday urban walking unfolds. It is argued that this form of engagement makes it possible to understand habit as situated and part and parcel of the sequentially organised and occasioned performance of journeys on foot. This, in turn, enables the transformative potential of habitual behaviour to be realised. Throughout the paper consideration is given to specific narratives of everyday urban mobilities; the significance of how such practices are actually`talked about'; and how these accounts matter in engaging with the experiential dimensions of urban movement.

This paper explores the socialities of everyday urban walking. The paper begins from the starting contention that a wide range of social and cultural theory, urban planning, and transport literatures position walking as a practice that unproblematically encourages 'social mixing', 'community cohesion' and 'social interaction'. Through the analysis of in-depth interview and diary data from research on urban walking in London, this paper engages with a series of underexamined questions. What for example is the nature of social interactions on foot? Who are they with, what initiates them and how do they unfold? How do these interactions relate to how we understand the relationship between walking and urban space? Attention is drawn to verbal and non-verbal interactions of strangers as they walk and to the significance of the practical accomplishment of walking together. However, an examination of the discursive organisation of diary and interview data extends existing work concerning the practical organisation of everyday pedestrian mobilities by considering the significance of participants' accounts of their walking experiences. This analytic move foregrounds a counterposition to dominant discourses surrounding everyday walking practices that is situated in the context of broader concerns with everyday urban politics and the 'right to the city'. This approach contributes to a clearer engagement with the socialities of urban walking whilst raising important questions concerning the ways in which particular walking discourses inform urban scholarship. The paper concludes that in the promotion of walking as a form of low-carbon active travel greater account should be taken of pedestrian encounters.