Evaluation of the Influencing Factors on the Quality of Pedestrian Zones from the Perspective of Citizens (Case Study: Two Phases of Pedestrian Zone in Rasht)

pedestrian zones are places that help improve the physical and mental health of people and their social mobility, creating human spaces and the identity of cities. But these conditions will be realized when the pedestrian zone is built based on the needs and expectations of the citizens. Therefore, the city management must be aware of the factors that are of great importance in pedestrian zones from the point of view of citizens and also check the success rate of pedestrian zone construction projects to solve the defects and problems in these spaces. In this research, by considering a complete set of factors affecting the quality of the pedestrian zone and using a method different from other previous researches, it was tried to evaluate these factors in the two phases of the pedestrian zone in Rasht city from the citizens' point of view, so that in addition to finding the most important factor, two phases The pedestrian zones are also compared to each other. The research method is applied based on the objective and descriptive-analytical based on the implementation method. Based on the research literature, four criteria (physical-spatial, access, socio-economic, micro-design) and 22 indicators were selected. In the next step, by distributing 392 questionnaires among the citizens as a simple random sampling, using Shannon's entropy method, the importance coefficient of study criteria and indicators and their weighted scores were obtained in two phases. The results show that in general, the level of satisfaction of the citizens with the pedestrian zone is average, and the micro-criterion of the design and three indicators are "suitable design for the disabled and the elderly", "lighting at night" and "proper placement of trash cans, drinking fountains, etc." They are of great importance and have the greatest impact on the quality of the pedestrian zone. These factors are more satisfactory in the first phase compared to the second phase of the pedestrian zone. In general, from the point of view of the citizens, the first phase of the pedestrian zone with a normalization score (0.52) is more favorable than the second phase (0.47). These results can be effective in the success of urban management to build desirable pedestrian zones. If more attention is paid to the design factor of these spaces.