Industry
Part of Pedestrian Friendly Stays Comparison: A Vetting Guide
Pedestrian friendly stays businesses owe walkers
See what pedestrian friendly stays businesses should tell walking guests: share a usable route, honest access details, bag storage, and a better block.
Pedestrian friendly stays businesses should make the approach from the sidewalk clear, describe access honestly and help guests use the town without a car. Lodging operators who understand that get better reviews for less money than the ones who keep buying furniture.
What to take away
- Publish the walking route from the station and the main street. Distance is not enough.
- Describe your steps, doors and lighting in plain numbers on your own site.
- Bag storage windows at both ends of the stay are the cheapest upgrade available.
- The block outside is part of your product, and there are public programs for improving it.
Write the route down
Most lodging websites give driving directions and a parking note. Replace that, or at least add to it, with a paragraph a walker can use: which street, which side, how many minutes, where the crossing is, and whether the route is lit.
A sample route in New York City could read: “From Grand Central Terminal, walk west on the north-side sidewalk of 42nd Street toward Times Square.” For a property’s own route, add the crossings and turns, then publish the walking time a staff member verifies on foot rather than guessing.
Walker route description checklist
- Which street
- Which side
- How many minutes
- Where the crossing is
- Whether the route is lit
Guests will screenshot it. Staff will stop repeating it on the phone. And the small number of guests for whom the route would not work will book elsewhere, which is better for both of you than a bad arrival.
Describe the building honestly
- Number of steps from the pavement to the door, and whether there is a handrail.
- Clear width of the narrowest doorway on the route to the rooms.
- Whether there is a lift, and which floors it actually serves.
- Whether outdoor lighting stays on all night.
For lodging open to the public, check applicable access obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. A step count or photograph is useful information for guests, but it is not a substitute for checking the requirements that apply to the property.
Numbers here do more good than photographs. A guest who knows there are five steps can plan around them. A guest who reads that the entrance is charming cannot plan anything at all, and will either book and be disappointed or book somewhere else without telling you why.
Honest building access details
- Steps from pavement to door
- Handrail present or not
- Narrowest doorway clear width
- Lift and floors served
- Outdoor lighting all night
Hold the bags, and say when
Cost
- Bag storage from 9am
- A cupboard
- Bag storage until 8pm
- The same cupboard
- Umbrella loan
- Twenty dollars once
- Printed local bus times
- Ten minutes a month
Effect on the guest's day
- Bag storage from 9am
- Adds a usable morning
- Bag storage until 8pm
- Adds a usable afternoon
- Umbrella loan
- Prevents a canceled plan
- Printed local bus times
- Saves a Sunday
The street outside is your product too
If the block is unpleasant, guests blame the stay. Operators have more say in that than they think. EPA's smart growth technical assistance programs are open to tribal, county and local governments and to nonprofits with local government support.
They cover sustainable community building blocks, equitable resilience for disaster-prone places and local food planning. A business cannot apply alone, but a business that asks its local government to apply is often the reason one does.
EPA’s Smart Growth Implementation Assistance is a named technical assistance program. A business can ask its local government to check current availability and whether the program fits a local project.
The other place to be present is the funding plan. HUD's consolidated planning process is how states and local jurisdictions assess housing and community development needs and make place-based investment decisions, and it is the framework that aligns Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) spending. Sidewalks, lighting and streetscape work get decided there, in public, usually with a thin turnout. Ask the local jurisdiction’s planning or community development staff when the draft plan and public input opportunities are available.
Guests, meanwhile, are checking the same things from the other side. The three-zone method for choosing a stay starts with the immediate blocks around the property, then checks destinations reachable on a continuous walking route, and finally considers farther destinations that may require transit or another ride. The block-level walk-shed test means tracing actual routes from the property and checking sidewalk continuity, crossings, lighting and useful destinations—not assuming that a place is walkable just because it looks close on a map.
