Modeling Satisfaction with the Walking Environment: The Case of an Urban University Neighborhood in a Developing Country

This case study investigates the level of satisfaction of students at the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, with the walking environment of the university's surroundings. The analysis is conducted by developing two structural equation models for estimating the relations between the level of satisfaction with the attributes of the walking environment and the level of satisfaction with the walking environment overall. The first model, based on 248 observations, examines the sample of students who are frequent on-foot commuters, whereas the second model, based on 439 observations, studies the remaining sampled students who typically conduct on-foot trips in the university surroundings for purposes other than commuting (shopping, eating, leisure, etc.). Both resulting models are of good fit and indicate that particular neighborhood attributes have the greatest impact on the level of satisfaction with the walking environment for both samples, these attributes being the ease of pedestrian crossing, sidewalk blockage, cleanliness of sidewalk, vehicular traffic on streets, and motorcycles going against traffic on one-way streets. Diversity of activities has a positive effect on the level of satisfaction as well. On the other hand, sidewalk width and quality are found to have no to little impact on the level of satisfaction of the two samples. Such findings may contribute to a better understanding of the walking environment in Beirut from the perspective of university students and aid in future policy interventions.