Effect of Urban Street Morphology on Pedestrian Comfort during Recreational Walks in Hong Kong

Comfort, being one of the needs for walking, is an important criterion for the propensity to walk and for route choices, particularly for recreational walkers. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive framework for assessing pedestrian comfort in urban street environments. In this study, a pedestrian comfort assessment framework has been formulated for an urban street segment by applying a multiple criteria decision analysis method and the response data collected from go-along interviews in urban streets. The collected responses revealed that built environmental criteria including sidewalks, amenities, landscape, and microenvironmental criteria including thermal comfort, air quality, and noise annoyance were all significant determinants for pedestrian comfort. Although individual microenvironmental criteria were perceived to be less important than individual built environmental criteria, the influences of microenvironmental attributes on pedestrian comfort were found to be significant, which was due especially to variations in street orientation or aspect ratio. In the context of urban street environments in Hong Kong, tree-planting arrangements and orientation should be given higher priority to enhance pedestrian comfort, and 4 m or 8 m tree-planting arrangements and a NW–SE direction are advised. Above all, our findings provide valuable suggestions on the planning of basic morphological features in creating comfortable streets in Hong Kong.