Assessment of the pedestrian capability of the historic texture tracks of Maragheh city

Over the past decades, the declining process of city centers has intensified due to the over relying on modern urbanism based on movement of cars and neglecting to organize pavements what is contrary to the sustainability of the city. The increasing trend towards sustainable urban development has caused urban planners to put forward the theory of new urbanism to save urban centers and the authorities to consider plans in order to pay attention to pedestrians which is one of the dimensions of new urbanism. The present paper also seeks to explore the walkability of the existing streets in the historical texture. In that direction at first, the view of pedestrians, in the form of distribution of 400 questionnaires, has been evaluated in terms of the quality of seven main indicators of walkability, including accessibility, safety, security, furniture, attractiveness, transportation and social activities in the study area. Accordingly, streets in the historical texture has been prioritized using the second type of Promethee technique. Based on a result of this technique, Beheshti, Khajeh Nasir South, Oohadi, Imam Khomeini and Daneshareh streets and so on have the highest level of walkability respectively. The results of this study showed that only 20% of the passages in the historical texture have walkability features.