Public Spaces Planning Policies and the Effects on Pedestrian Mobility in a Metropolis City; the Case Study of Tehran

Referring to the relationship of urban planning and health issues, pedestrian mobility has been introduced as a key concept in contemporary literature and experiences of public spaces planning and design. Pedestrian friendly urban spaces with good qualities like safety, vitality, diversity, cleanness, etc. have tremendous effects on phisycal and mental health. Especially thoes sort of spaces are essential in metropolis cities with car dominant urban spaces to change quality of life. Looking to metropolis cities in developing countries has revealed that Tehran as the capital of Iran has started a great change in public spaces planning policies which directly effects on pedestrian mobility. That’s why based on new international statistics the quality of life growth rate in Tehran has been increased in recent five years, although there is a long way ahead. This reasearch is seeking to evaluate public spaces planning policies in Tehran during the recent decade. As methodolgy, in the first stage three largest pedestrian zones with different functions have been choosed to study. In the second stage two main streets of Tehran have been chosen to evaluate pedestrian mobility policies according to sidewalk qualities. Deep observations, questionnairs and behavioral analysis are key methods in these two stages. In the third stage, pedetrian spaces planning policies have been compared with highways design in a quantative approach to demonstrate how much attention has been paid to pedestrian mobility in Tehran Municipality policies in recent decade. Some results show overall satisfaction of citizens in new pedestrian zones. Those pedestrian zones which have a better connection to public transport have been more successful. As a critical view pedestrian moblity planning policies of Tehran have concentrated in segregated zones which needs improving an integrated urban spaces network. The analysis of sidewlaks reveals that in spite of new paving projects the sensetive groups needs have been neglected. Also, intersections design, paving quality, distiribution of activities and connectivity in sidewalks need major modification. In comparison to highway development policies, based on economical point of view Tehran Municipality needs more to spend on pedestrian mobility policies