Mobility Methodolologies Series: Spatial analysis of citizens’ walkability perceptions in Thessaloniki, Greece with Roxani Gkavra
Held on November 3, 2022 for the Global Walkability Correspondents Network
About Roxani: Born in Thessaloniki Greece, she lived there for more than 20 years until she moved abroad, first to Delft, the Netherlands, and then to Vienna, Austria where she now lives.
In all these three different cities and countries, she faced different burdens but also different encouraging factors to walking. Thesssaloniki’s main issues are the lack of accessible and welcoming pedestrian conditions as well as separation and prioritization from mostly motorised-traffic. Nevertheless, a lot of the available infrastructure is made on the human-scale and provides a good support on the quote ‘if you build it-they will use it’.
Vienna on the other hand has and keeps on developing an extensive pedestrian network and can offer a lot of inspiration from many cities around the network. However, it is still not a walking paradise. Separation but also co-living with the expanding cycling infrastructure is still to be achieved.
She represents Thessaloniki and Vienna in the Global Walkability Correspondents Network. “I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks: It is for all of us, no matter whether we walk on feet or wheelchair.” Roxani notes. “So I just want to be part of the population group that makes sure we do not forget this and we prioritize it.“