Pedestrian Access Ways (PAWs) provide an essential support for health and social and economic well-being of communities in Western Australia.
PAWs provide a key part of the alternative non-vehicle access route system for pedestrians, parents with prams, workers and others accessing public transport and shops, runners, walkers, cyclists and those using non-vehicular means of travel for a variety of reasons including health and environmental awareness.
The availability of PAWs is particularly essential in precincts with 'convoluted' road layouts where roads are intentionally overly-long and aimed at supporting car-only access.
At times, there are attempts to close or remove PAWs by self-interested individuals or groups.
In some cases, this is due to perceived crime concerns, in others, to provide financial advantage. This is because, in many cases, the inclusion of the small additional area of land from a closed PAW can enable the adjoining landowners to subdivide their block for significant financial gain. There is some indication that when landowners aim to close a PAW to enable them to subdivide for profit, they present the argument as a 'crime problem' to encourage LGAs to make the closure decision.
This paper presents a review of the crime prevention aspects of PAWs in a variety of environments in the Perth metropolitan area, and develops a new typology of PAWs.
The research on which it was based was funded by the WA Office of Crime Prevention and the WA Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.
The paper is a shortened form of a larger research report provided to project sponsors. It was first presented as a peer-reviewed paper to a meeting of the Planning and Transport Research Centre (PATREC) at Edith Cowan University in 2008.
The formal citation for the paper is:
Love, T. & Cozens, P. M. (2008). Pedestrian Access Ways in Western Australia. Peer-reviewed paper presented at the PATREC Research Forum, ECU. Published: Design Out Crime and CPTED Centre 2019.
A pdf of the paper is available from here.
A PowerPoint presentation of the paper is available from here.