Arriving by Greyhound coach in Phoenix, Arizona, one November evening I was faced with either six hours waiting in the terminal or a one-mile walk with my wheelie suitcase to a nearby shuttle bus. I soon learned that simple-sounding walk was alongside a fast, unlit road with no pavement. Forced to take a taxi ($15 minimum fare) the Cameroonian driver and I talked incredulously as we watched the gravel and grass verge – perfectly wide enough for a sidewalk – drift past into the night.

The modern obsession with autonomous and electric vehicles, dockless scooters and bicycles means it is easy to forget the humble pedestrian. However, as almost every journey starts or finishes on foot, we are ignoring a fundamental part of what makes a city great.

Q&A What is Walking the City week? Show Hide As cities around the world close central streets to cars to mark World Car-Free Day, Guardian Cities is looking at the joys and trials of urban walking. The US humourist and writer David Sedaris tells us about walking in cities from Raleigh to Reykjavik. Will Self explains what he learns from perambulations in London, there’s Fran Lebowitz in New York, Helen Garner in Melbourne, “natural navigator” Tristan Gooley in Portsmouth, and writers on Delhi and Newcastle, Cairo and Wellington. Laura Laker casts a critical eye on the performance of Vision Zero, the global city scheme to eliminate traffic deaths. London has signed up – will it enjoy the success of New York, or the delays of LA? The recent blocking of Sadiq Khan’s plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street does not bode well. Correspondent Stephen Burgen samples the newfound silence in the Spanish car-free city of Pontevedra, and Matthew Keegan discovers what prompted Hong Kong to reopen a popular pedestrian street to vehicles. Renate van der Zee looks at the rise, fall and rebirth of the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam – Europe’s first pedestrianised street – while Rachel Aldred at the University of Westminster crunches the numbers to identify the most dangerous London boroughs for people on foot. Oliver Wainwright explores the City of London’s forgotten Pedways – and asks whether these 1960s walkways can make a comeback. We consider the phenomenon of “desire lines”, examine the art of following a stranger in the hope of seeing a city in a new light, and much more. Nick Van Mead Photograph: Dorota and Mariusz Jarymowiczowie/Dorling Kindersley

Susan Claris, associate director of transport consulting at the design and planning company Arup, says much can be done quickly and simply. “That for me is the joy of walkability,” she says. “There are so many things that can be done … it just takes someone to get on and do it.”

More than 270,000 people on foot are killed on the world’s roads every year, according to the WHO.

The UK walking charity Living Streets says because such details have so long been neglected, cities with ambitions for pedestrians should appoint a walking champion, alongside tougher moves to tackle air pollution and reduce motor traffic volumes and the biggest road safety risk factor: speed. They say low emissions charging zones or smart road pricing, along with enforcement of 20mph speed limits, could help fund people-friendly city centres and safe routes to schools.

Skye Duncan of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (Nacto), an association of 62 major North American cities and 10 transport agencies, says cities have long been asking the wrong question – how can we move cars? – when they should be asking: how can we move people?

“Pedestrians haven’t been put at the heart of cities,” she adds. “Fundamentally it’s pretty difficult to make a great city without great walking conditions.”

Auckland: the economics of shared streets

Notoriously car-centric Auckland in New Zealand recently published a report showing pedestrians as the most economically important transport mode in the city. They estimated that policies which put people off walking on Queen Street, a major shopping area, cost NZ$11.7m (£5.9m) a year.

Shared areas were created in and around Fort Street, a mixed commercial and residential area in the central business district. The city replaced car parking on some streets with trees and outdoor seating, and removed bollards and kerbs that had separated cars from pedestrians. The moves created more space for open-air activities, and made clear accessible routes for the visually impaired.

Fort Street, Auckland, before and after pedestrianisation

This new pedestrian network, at a cost of NZ$23m, increased pedestrian volumes by 54% and consumer spending by 47%. Meanwhile, the number of vehicles fell by 25% – and 80% said they felt safer in the area.

Bruno Royce, who conducted a safety review of the scheme, says shared spaces aren’t suitable everywhere, but can be a useful first step towards full pedestrianisation. Despite the changes he says some cars still travelled above 22kph, higher than the 10kph ideal. He would like to see the city narrowing or “kinking” the shared space to slow cars, or ban cars completely for part of the day.

London: machine learning

The City of London has some of the highest pedestrian concentrations in the world, with 51% of people moving on foot in just 9% of the road space. Added to that are huge numbers of people on bicycles – the City’s largest transport mode during the morning peak.

What we are trying to do is stop the awkward dance Tom Bailey of Almere Technology

The City of London Corporation recently banned all but buses, bicycles and pedestrians on weekdays from its notorious dangerous Bank junction (pictured above) – the site of 107 casualties including two deaths between 2012 and 2016.

On nearby Queen Street it is looking to reduce conflict between people on bikes and on foot in a busy shared space. Almere Technology is tracking and analysing interactions using cameras and machine learning software.

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“What we are trying to do is stop the awkward dance,” says Almere Technology’s Tom Bailey, describing the point at which a pedestrian and cyclist interact, and one or both move aside.

“At less than three-quarters of a metre from pedestrians, generally the perception of conflict increases. The classic complaint is ‘these cyclists are travelling too fast’ but what does too fast mean in that context?”

Against baseline data the will trial different interventions, from “slow down” signs to separate bike lanes. Surveys of pedestrians and cyclists will help determine which works best.

Hanoi: safer spaces for women

Safe public toilets are something Susan Claris of Arup calls a “huge indicator of a civilised, walkable city”. In Vietnam, Action Aid found 87% of women and girls had experienced sexual harassment in public places, and that they felt least safe in public toilets, many of which have unisex entrances, as well as on buses.

Action Aid, Plan International and UN Women are developing pilot locations in cities across the country to test different interventions, such as street lighting.

ActionAid Vietnam’s Safe City app

Action Aid launched an app called S-City for people to report how safe or unsafe they feel on the street, in the workplace, or in schools, buses or public toilets. A map of the crowdsourced safety data helps others choose the safest route. The data will also be used to monitor how cities are performing and call for improvements.

Manchester: a walking network

A useable network of high-quality paths is key for a pedestrian-friendly city. Greater Manchester has recently announced a 1,000-mile £160m walking and cycling grid, including 1,400 safer road crossings, improved footways and 25 “filtered neighbourhoods” which prioritise people on bike and on foot over cars, and featuring places to sit, play and socialise. When completed, Beelines will be the UK’s biggest connected walking and cycling network.

Greater Manchester before (left) and after. Red areas have no accessible crossing points; orange areas have one. Blue dots are crossing points, and red lines are busy roads. The map on the right shows yellow beelines and green points where crossings are proposed.

Work will be overseen by Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling commissioner, the former Olympic gold medal cyclist Chris Boardman, in collaboration with the city’s 10 local authorities. Boardman wants the network to work for people of all ages, and talks about a “double buggy test” for pavement widths, and avoiding shared pavements with cycles.

Denver: ‘what’s wrong with the sidewalks?’

When people move to Denver, Colorado, from places like New York, “they’re, like, ‘What’s wrong with the sidewalks? Why is it so hard to walk here?’,” says Jill Locantore.

At the current funding rate it would take 440 years to complete all the sidewalks in Denver Jill Locantore

She is a campaigner for Walk Denver, a small team which runs anything from pop-up seating areas and traffic calming to pedestrian way-pointing signs.

In 2015 Walk Denver delivered a 3,000-strong better sidewalks petition, which helped push city hall into improving its pavements. A report found 40% of sidewalks were missing or too narrow for wheelchairs – and that rose to 47% in low-income neighbourhoods.

A recent report found 40% of Denver sidewalks were missing, or were too narrow for wheelchairs. Photographs: Cyrus McCrimmon and AAron Ontiveroz/Denver Post via Getty Images

The city allocated $30m to improve sidewalks – although an estimated $1bn is needed. “At the current funding rate it would take 440 years to complete all the sidewalks in Denver,” says Locantore.

Denver residents are responsible for maintaining sidewalks outside their homes, but a new funding programme could help out.

Locantore would also like to see more trees, lighting, slower traffic and safety improvements to the most dangerous streets. A prime candidate is Federal Boulevard, the site of half of Denver’s 14 pedestrian deaths last year.

Addis Ababa: slower speeds, narrower car lanes

In Ethiopia’s capital city 70% of all trips are on foot, and only 4% by car. Pedestrians account for 80% of the city’s almost 500 annual road deaths.

A safe intersections programme aims to halve Addis Ababa traffic injuries and fatalities by 2023. Sebategna intersection, beside Africa’s largest market, Mercato, was transformed late last year with planters and floor paint, on a six-month trial basis – the picture above shows it before and after changes were made. Ten city junctions will be similarly transformed annually, for the next three years.

An earlier transformation of LeGare intersection successfully reduced vehicle turning speeds from 30kph to 18.5kph. Broad central pedestrian refuges and pavements reduced crossing distances from 50m to as little as 6.5m. The result: people felt safer, and more of them used the improved crossings. An underpass would have cost 500-time more, Nacto estimates.

San Francisco: somewhere to meet and rest

Chris Duderstadt has placed 115 public benches around San Francisco since the he started his project in the 1970s. He hand-builds, paints and delivers the benches for free or a small donation, giving the community somewhere to meet and rest. He even shares his design so others can do the same.

“They make a neighbourhood much friendlier,” he says. “With an hour and a half I can make a bench. It gives me joy, it gives other people joy.”

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If the proposed location is suitable, Duderstadt paints them to fit in – he painted an “emmental yellow” bench outside a cheese shop – or tailors them according to requests from hosts who “adopt” them.

‘Would that all journeys were on foot’: writers on the joy of walking Read more

The benches sometimes attract homeless people, and criticism. If that happens Duderstadt says he or the hosts will help rough sleepers get in touch with local services, and will remove the bench for a period.

“I’ve had a bench in front of my house for 40 years and, generally speaking, people that sit on the bench are respectful,” he says. “It builds communities. Sometimes the people who use them don’t smell good, but that’s life.”

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