Pedestrian lighting design is a very important part of urban lighting design. Appropriately designed pedestrian lighting can provide people with sense of safety and improve their quality of life. However, the exploration of people's needs and perceptions of pedestrian lighting is neglected. Most of the existing design guidelines are generated from designer centered perspectives. This study aims at creating new perspectives in pedestrian lighting study. In this study, lighting quality is investigated through a behavioral science approach by examining the relationship between the lighting attributes and people's perceived safety. Primary research objectives include identifying important attributes of the lighting environment, examining their influence on people's perceived safety, and exploring the impacts of pedestrian's individual characteristics in this perceptual process. In order to fulfill the research objectives, this thesis comprises an online survey that aims to discover the environmental perceptions of the people from Virginia Tech towards the nighttime pedestrian footpath scenes of the campus. The findings from the online survey indicate that important lighting attributes influencing people's perceived safety are identified as: uniformity, facial recognition, concealment and perceived brightness. The findings further indicate that some environmental context attributes, environmental perception attributes, and socio-demographic attributes also significantly influence people's perceived safety. Several design guidelines are provided for future lighting design practice. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The dimension of humanization has been neglected for decades. Planning themes such as automobile and transportation have erroneously occupied a dominant position. While public space, pedestrian activities and urban space as a gathering place for urban residents have been placed in a very minor position. As motorization in contemporary cities develops, the overall pedestrian environment of cities is deteriorating, and the street spaces are seriously lacking in the care and consideration of pedestrians, especially the vulnerable groups. Urban design generally, and pedestrian environment in particular, has a significant influence on pedestrian activity. Also, with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation (and Generation X, to a lesser degree), the older adult population will increase significantly over the next few decades in California and the United States as a whole. For most people, walking is a social equal mode of transportation, involving all levels, including children and the elderly. For the elderly, walking is the most common way to travel, and also the most convenient and economical way to exercise and participate in public activities, so streets are often the most commonly used outdoor space for walking. Streets should be designed to encourage walking, cycling, and interaction. The core content of this study is how to construct urban street space suitable for the elderly. Specifically speaking, what are the needs of the elderly regarding street designs that allows them to walk and participate in public activities. The study will also looks at whether the existing urban street environments meet these needs, for comfort level and interest level and how to create street space to meet these needs, so that urban streets can better serve the elderly.

Public health is an increasingly important issue addressed from both environmental and public health sectors for the future development of urban environments. From a planning perspective, one possible solution is to increase walkability throughout the cities. Many assessment methods are being developed and administered to evaluate the quality of existing urban environments to promote walkable cities/communities. The results from using these methods provide policymakers and stakeholders with valuable information regarding the existing physical conditions of the environment. Although several US cities started to develop and refocus plans toward pedestrian-oriented policies approaches, results from this particular study determined that the quality of pedestrian environments cannot solely be determined by using available assessment tools and recommend additional analytical methods used in conjunction with source data to provide a complete perspective to successfully increase the quality of life. The condition of the physical environment – high, average, and low quality – was important contributing factors to increase walkability, yet, it is equally important to understand and consider the needs, preferences and perceptions of end users when public officials are charged with the task of developing plan proposals for pedestrian neighborhoods. This study addresses these issues through a case study examining the quality of pedestrian environment and how people perceive those surroundings of downtown San Luis Obispo.