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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Health, Well-Being and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 22173

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tiziana Campisi

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna Kore, 94100 Enna, Italy
Interests: sustainable urban mobility; mobility management; first last mile logistics
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Prof. Dr. Giovanni Tesoriere

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna KORE, Enna, Italy
Interests: road safety; road and airport infrastructures; road design; accessibility
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Prof. Iva Mrak

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka; Ul. Radmile Matejčić 3, 51000, Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: road impaired users; transport and urban planning; urban design and planning
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Dr. Antonino Canale

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna Kore, Cittadella Universitaria, 94100 Enna (EN), Italy
Interests: sustainable and resilient mobility; shared mobility; microscopic traffic simulation; active mobility; planning for accessibility
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The accessibility of urban spaces is of fundamental importance for the interests of cities and transport networks. Urban spaces, such as streets and squares, are crowded with weak road users who must be protected in terms of safety and from a psychological point of view. Our main area of interest is the definition of critical issues related to the accessibility of public spaces.

This Special Issue will consist of articles that describe the synthesis of the evolution of urban spaces and connected transport networks, paying particular attention to weak able-bodied and non-able-bodied road users and to the current theory and practice of planning, design, and management of public spaces with particular focus on future challenges, which will be of interest to scientists who deal with accessibility problems and issues generally involved in road traffic engineering and urban planning, as well as design, traffic, and maintenance engineers.

Other important areas of concern regarding public spaces include but are not limited to:

sustainable transport and urban planning;
road infrastructure development;
issues related to pedestrians, bicyclists, bikers/motorcyclist and visually impaired users;
transport and infrastructures modelling;
walkability;
psycho-urbanism.

Prof. Tiziana Campisi
Prof. Giovanni Tesoriere
Prof. Iva Mrak
Dr. Antonino Canale
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

accessibility
vulnerable users
transport network
urban planning
public space

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 900 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Constructing Sports Promotion Models for an Accessibility and Efficiency Analysis of City Governments

by Mei-Jung Chen, Wen-Bin Lin, Shao-Wei Yeh and Mei-Yen Chen

Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9390; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169390 - 21 Aug 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1966

Abstract

This study provides a systematic analysis of sports promotion efficiency in 22 administrative districts in Taiwan from 2011 to 2018. We first considered sports behavior and sports information promotion and connected the multiple intermediate products using network DEA, used the public performance and outputs to measure the total efficiency of sports promotion in the 22 administrative districts, and then established the final input–output indicators. The long-term tracking of sports promotion efficiency shows that, while Taipei and Taoyuan experienced upward trends, the other 20 administrative districts saw declining trends. We also used truncated regression to identify 14 environmental variables that affected the efficiency of sports promotion in the 22 administrative districts from 2016 to 2018, with the results showing that funding, satisfaction with life, and average BMI in each administrative district were significant factors, revealing the latest trends in and measurements of governance in terms of government accessibility. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

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13 pages, 1684 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatial Equity of Public Parks: A Case Study of Kabul City, Afghanistan

by Rashid A. Mushkani and Haruka Ono

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1516; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031516 - 01 Feb 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4013

Abstract

Accessibility, the size of the land area, the design and build quality, and the number of parks and their correlation with population density are key elements in fostering ecological spatial equity within cities. This study analyzed different spatial equity attributes of existing parks in Kabul City using onsite observations, measurement analyses, and mapping and buffering of satellite imagery using computer-aided design methods. The results revealed that, presently, 309 ha of urban land is covered by parks, which accounts for 0.78% of the total land area of 394.78 km². On average, a quarter of city residents can access a park with basic amenities within 300 to 600 m of their residence, and parks currently provide a land coverage distribution per resident of 0.69 m². However, the majority of parks lack certain amenities like playground and sports facilities desired by different user groups. This article also explored the inequitable distribution of parks at the city scale, underlining the scarcity or concentration of parks in certain areas and stressing the importance of allocating additional land for park provision. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

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15 pages, 283 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impacts of the Neighborhood Built Environment on Social Capital for Middle-Aged and Elderly Koreans

by Eunju Hwang, Nancy Brossoie, Jin Wook Jeong and Kimin Song

Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 756; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020756 - 14 Jan 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2277

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the neighborhood built environment (NBE) aspects of age-friendly cities and communities (AFCCs) and social capital in the Korean context. We described and compared age differences when analyzing misfits of AFCC NBE and impacts on social capital. We collected the data (N = 1246) from two Korean communities; our multiple and binary logistic regression outcomes show that AFCC NBE aspects such as outdoor spaces, transportation, and housing are significant predictors of different subcategories of social capital. For the older group, the outdoor spaces misfit was significant for all three subcategories of social capital, but transportation and housing misfits were significant for the social trust and reciprocity index scores. For the middle-aged group, the outdoor spaces misfit was significant for social networking and participation, and a transportation misfit was significant for participation and social trust and reciprocity. Fewer misfits or better fits of outdoor spaces and transportation encouraged more networking, participation, social trust, and reciprocity. Dwelling type was important to predict social capital, especially for the older group. The present study confirmed the importance of AFCC NBE in predicting social capital and unique factors in the Korean context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

19 pages, 1866 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pedestrians-Cyclists Shared Spaces Level of Service: Comparison of Methodologies and Critical Discussion

by Andreas Nikiforiadis, Socrates Basbas, Foteini Mikiki, Aikaterini Oikonomou and Efrosyni Polymeroudi

Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 361; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010361 - 03 Jan 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2894

Abstract

Pedestrians–cyclists shared spaces, sidewalks and streets are now a commonly implemented urban design solution in many cities, due to the willingness to promote sustainable mobility and the non-availability of public space. The proper design and management of these infrastructures requires an accurate evaluation of their performance. The most dominant evaluation metric is the level of service (LOS) and various methodologies have been proposed in the literature for its assessment in infrastructures that are being used by pedestrians, cyclists or by both of these two types of users. The present paper gathers and presents various methodologies, and it applies some of them on two pedestrians-cyclists shared spaces in a medium-sized city in Greece. The outcomes of the methodologies are being compared both among themselves and in relation to the opinions of the users, who participated in a questionnaire survey. The review of the literature, along with the application of some of the methodologies, leads to a fruitful discussion, which sets the groundwork for future research in the field of LOS and it also assists practitioners in selecting the appropriate methodologies for the assessment of pedestrian–cyclists shared spaces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

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20 pages, 5903 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cycling Master Plans in Italy: The I-BIM Feasibility Tool for Cost and Safety Assessments

by Tiziana Campisi, Giovanna Acampa, Giorgia Marino and Giovanni Tesoriere

Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4723; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114723 - 09 Jun 2020

Cited by 61 | Viewed by 4633

Abstract

Interest towards urban micromobility has been growing lately, and it will now increase further due to the measures used against COVID-19. It is recommended to avoid close contact to prevent contagion. Municipalities have been called to implement wider cycling networks so that people may go to their work place by cycling rather than by using public transport. This paper focused on cycling path design using an infrastructure-building information model (I-BIM). The issue covered was how to connect cost and safety requirements in the first steps of the project. We set a methodology that gives, after identifying the intervention area and defining the available economic resources, the key elements needed to design possible cycle path solutions. It guides the designer step-by-step, starting from basic assumptions related to a cycle path’s location (urban/non-urban), budget (by range), and safety (according to Bicycle Compatibility Index BCI and Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS) index), up to the definition of preferred options in terms of materials to be selected. As a case study, we implemented this methodology in the old city center of Catania in Sicily (Italy), designing a cycle path that connects the city center with the existing cycle path on the coast, while aligning with safety requirements within budget constraints. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

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19 pages, 6427 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Exploration of Spatial and Social Inequalities of Urban Sports Facilities in Nanning City, China

by Jinghong Shen, Jianquan Cheng, Wencong Huang and Fantao Zeng

Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4353; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114353 - 26 May 2020

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4652

Abstract

Health and well-being have become important dimensions of urban sustainability, particularly in countries with rapid urbanization and aging populations. As such, providing opportunities for physical activity and exercise has become a priority in the planning and governance of Healthy City in these countries. Relatively little research has investigated the provision of sports facilities in developing countries. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the spatial and social inequality of sports facilities at the urban scale using Nanning City in South China as a case study. Spatial aggregate analyses, including an allocation index, accessibility, diversity, and geographically weighted regression, were applied to mixed data sets from primary and secondary sources from 2018. The results confirmed a strong inequality of sports facilities provision across the study area and between age groups. This study suggests that the reduction of inequality and the improvement of equity and social justice should consider the spatial and social matches between demand and supply, through increasing sports facilities investment intensity and road network density. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Accessibility, Public Space and Health)

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