How to Discover Your Average Walking Speed.Facts About Walking Speed: Did You Know … ?.Average Walking Speed By Age and Gender.The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. On a final technical note, most cars burn fuel most efficiently at 45-55 mph but those are exactly the speeds cars are not reaching in cities today, and with most cars driving within cities at low speeds in start-stop traffic, it makes a stronger argument for hybrids, not diesels. Thus, walking and bicycling can actually beat driving in a lot of cities, so the question is: what is the capacity of cities to motorize? And if you consider the deleterious externalities suffered by all (congestion, safety, local air pollution, global pollutants), congestion charging might become a viral solution. And that's why I'm still riding my bike in January /Ewhf1X7Xnf If we look at the data below, you see that Chinese cities are facing some fairly slow speeds, and the dial is unlikely to move in the other direction given increasing urbanization and motorization.īeijing traffic moves half as fast as NYC. Note that this is average walking speed, not even rush hour traffic on the worst corridors. What about Beijing? According to Quartz, the average walking speed is 7.5 mph (12.1 kph), so close to bicycling speed. Then again, the safety of walking, bicycling and driving are not exactly on par. What about in other cities, say in Asia? In New Delhi, average driving speeds are approaching 5 kph (3.1 mph), so that’s actually a good example of where walking is faster than driving or at least on par. And if starts trotting, you might get up to a healthy 15 mph. If we look outside just speeds, there is a lot more that could be said about what is healthier, more sustainable, and so on, but if we stick with looking at just speed, it’s clear in all cases above: you’d be better off getting a horse-drawn carriage. New York City (7,8,8 mph – three corridors)Īgain, it seems it is not faster to walk, but what about bicycling? The average speed for bicycling in Copenhagen (one of the few bike-congested cities in the world) is 15.5 kph (9.6 mph), so in that case you might actually be better off biking in all the corridors mentioned above.What about during rush hour? Are you better off walking than driving somewhere? According to a 2013 analysis by INRIX, which looked at the worst corridors in Europe and North America, the following cities had corridors with single-digit driving speeds: But when compared to a horse-drawn carriage, as mentioned above, the carriage’s assumed speed of 10-15 kph (6.2-9.3 mph) is getting close to central London speeds.īut average speed only tells us how fast things are moving on average. If we accept that, in which cities is it faster to walk than drive?Įven in the most congested city in Europe, London, the average speed is 19 kph (or 11.8 mph), which means it’s still arguably faster to drive. Am I a fast walker? Probably, but still, what average speed are they using? According to most urban planners, 5 kph (3.1 mph) is an average human walking speed. Today, I found myself walking past the same car here in Bangkok as I went to work, and it made me wonder: where is it actually faster to walk than drive?įirst off, how fast do we actually walk? I can’t help but notice that every time I use Google Maps, I’m at my destination faster than what Google had predicted.
#Average speed of walking full#
Late last year I came across an article noting that traffic in downtown London was now moving at the same speed as that of a horse-drawn carriage, basically the state of traffic a full century ago.