by Ann Sussman, RA

Interested in learning how adding trees and greenery improve the pedestrian experience? Or how it increases the likelihood that people will even consider walking down a suburban street?

Then check out the work at the Devens Enterprise Commission, presented at a public forum on Tuesday, February 27th.

Prof. Justin Hollander (Tufts University) and I discussed Green + Complete Streets (GCS) policies there which aim to improve the pedestrian and cyclist experience. And, included a presentation on biometric tools, including eye tracking, showing new understandings about why these interventions work.

The brief slideshow, Biometric Responses to Green and Complete Street Elements in Devens, Massachusetts presents our team’s recent research using state-of-the art eye-tracking software (iMotions-online) to better understand the public experience of new residential streets in Devens.

This includes slides, such as below, which indicate how viewers see and focus on a street differently when it has more trees and red-brick walkways. They can’t help it! Note how reddest heatmaps are larger on top image, with more GCS elements, than the one below it, with less. (Heatmaps glow reddest where people look most, fading to yellow and green in areas receiving less attention, and show no color at all in areas ignored.)

And these first glances, turn out to be extremely important – determining whether someone decides to walk down a street – or never gets the idea!

Interested in learning more? Feel free to reach out to our nonprofit, theHapi.org; its mission is to understand the human experience of the built environment and improve its design through education and research. (email: contact@theHapi.org)

Thanks to Prof. Justin B. Hollander, UEP, Tufts, and the Devens biometric research team Maria Christofi, Lisa Carlson-Hill, and Lydia Eldridge for their work here, and Neil Angus and the Devens Enterprise Commission for making it happen; and, finally, to iMotions.com for making the biometric research feasible.