The walkability assessment is crucial to the walking promotion initiatives. The most common methodology for walkability assessment is the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), but it is limited to the physical characteristics of the walkways, which are not sufficient for assessing the recreational areas. This study aims to evaluate the walkability of a recreational area with unique historical and cultural features using a developed questionnaire. Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad City was selected for this purpose. The Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS)-Recreational questionnaire was developed in this research to combine physical elements and perception factors. The walkway and sidewalk widths, speed, and pedestrian flow were manually collected. The developed questionnaire was distributed to 392 pedestrians to collect their responses. The results show that Al-Mutanabbi Street is rated "Good" with a score of 3.6, according to the developed NEWS-Recreational survey, with moderate ratings for movement, accessibility, and physical characteristics that require improvement. However, the HCM methodology rate is the Level of Service (LoS) "F". The difference in the results may introduce a potential bias because the HCM approach relies solely on quantitative, infrastructure-based criteria. At the same time, the NEWS-Recreational tool employs a mixed-methods approach that combines objective evaluations with perception-based and qualitative feedback. This makes the developed NEWS-Recreational questionnaire more comprehensive than the traditional methods.
Subhi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.