“The pedestrian is an extremely fragile species, the canary in the coal mine of urban livability.” — Jeff Speck, “Walkable City,” 2012

Something’s missing from the still very lively debate about Picture Main Street, from the city’s website on that project where the focus is on the street, traffic lanes, bikes and bike lanes. Something’s missing from the conversation about “revitalizing” Northampton and missing from consideration of infill and its negative impact on walkability in downtown neighborhoods.

Something is glaringly missing from the agenda of the Office of Planning & Sustainability, the DPW, from the Planning Board and the Transportation and Parking Commission, even from the Bike & Pedestrian Subcommittee. What’s missing is any serious significant consideration of pedestrians, of walking, or attention to walkability, and the infrastructure and budget needed to support it.

It seems just common sense that city officials, planners and boards planning a redesign to reinvigorate our struggling downtown by making it, and the city at large, more “human-centered,” would have walking — the most basic, democratic, most universally possible, cleanest and cheapest form of transportation — high on their priority list.

And walkability not only on Main Street, but in the surrounding downtown neighborhoods as well. Because this is “the draw” of living downtown: the promise of easy walking or biking into town for appointments, shopping, or other errands. And this is the way downtown neighborhoods support local business and services.

But the infrastructure doesn’t fit the promise, at least not in my Montview neighborhood; sidewalks are treacherous and nonexistent in places. They are not ADA-compliant. And cut-through traffic makes walking or riding a bike in the street dangerous. So it seems easier and safer for lots of people to get in a car and drive to a store rather than to walk downtown. Safer for parents to drive their child to school or the bus stop rather than to let them walk.

What’s needed to reinvigorate the city, downtown and the neighborhoods as well — because the health of downtown depends on the health of the neighborhoods, and vice versa — seems obvious to a lot of us; cheaper, more democratic and sustainable than the Picture Main Street project being put forth by the mayor and planning office.

We need to put people at the heart of any solution, not bicycles, because most people walk when not driving a car. And more people would choose walking if the infrastructure was there. There’s a whole literature about walking and walkability that supports my opinion on this.

ARUP, a London- based firm focused on urban development, released “Cities Alive: Towards A Walking World” (2012), to “make the case for policies that encourage walking to be placed at the heart of all decisions about the built environment, as walkable cities are better cities for everyone.” Below are selected quotes (arup.com/insights/cities-alive-towards-a-walking-world/):

■“The economic value of walking has been described as the walking economy. There is a direct link between the city’s economic prosperity and the safety and convenience of the pedestrian experience.” City of Melbourne, 2012

■“Promoting walking contributes to the vibrancy of the streetscape. The creation of a walkable environment, therefore, is a fundamental incentive to reduce vacancies and to promote the creation of thriving active street frontages.”

■“Where people’s proximity to one another is higher, as in a walkable environment, there is more likely to be a stronger sense of community. This is called civic responsibility, and it is essential to ensure not only the respect of the quality of public assets, but also the prosperity of social capital over time.”

■“For thousands of years, creating cities has been about proximity. … The best places to live in the world have everything within walking distance. It is still the most important form of transportation because every trip begins and ends with walking. Designing around walkability leads to broad and meaningful outcomes, from general fitness levels to better air quality ... greater social interactions, increased safety through peoples’ ‘eyes on the street,’ better economic performance through richer retail offerings and increased serendipity, a greater sense of a civic sensibility through the shared spaces that pedestrians can inhabit and adopt.”

America Walks is sponsoring a Week Without Driving, Sept. 30 to Oct. 6 (americawalks.org/campaigns/week-without-driving/). I hope people will put on their walking shoes, walk into town, to the mayor’s office or the Office of Planning and Sustainability, to register your concerns about Picture Main Street and your support for a different, cheaper plan, one that would improve infrastructure to support and encourage walking throughout the city’s neighborhoods as a the first step to revitalizing Northampton.

Claudia Lefko walks or rides her three-speed bike downtown almost daily from her Montview Neighborhood in Northampton.