Greetings from Riyadh! It is 47°C outside, the asphalt shimmers, bus stops empty, and even a short trip on foot feels unreasonable. It’s tempting to declare the walkability debate moot the moment the mercury spikes. But doing so would miss two truths: first, extreme heat has serious, manageable health risks that demand better urban design; second, three or four brutal summer months are not a reason to abandon the public-realm improvements that make the other eight or nine months healthier, safer, and more vibrant.

The health reality—and why design matters

High temperatures elevate the risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke, aggravate cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, and increase dehydration and kidney stress. The urban heat-island effect can add several degrees on top of the forecast, while dark pavements radiate heat well into the night, compromising sleep and recovery. Vulnerable groups—children, the elderly, outdoor workers, and those with chronic illness—bear the brunt. These are not reasons to give up on walking; they are reasons to design for it. Shade, surface materials, microclimate management, and route choice can lower perceived temperatures dramatically. The difference between a sun-baked, six-lane crossing and a shaded, tree-lined arcade with air-conditioned “rest points” is the difference between risk and routine.

Lessons from hot (and cold) cities

Singapore treats walking as a system, not a leftover space. Sheltered linkways—continuous covered routes—stitch together MRT stations, bus interchanges, towers, and housing estates. Underground connections and through-block links are often cooled indirectly via adjacent malls, creating a de facto climate-moderated pedestrian network. The point is continuity: once you start walking, you rarely have to step into direct sun for long.

Hong Kong extends that logic vertically. Elevated walkways, footbridges, and the Central–Mid-Levels escalator system link offices, transit, and neighborhoods in a weather-protected “second ground.” Much of this network funnels through buildings where air-conditioning, cafés, and retail create comfortable pauses. Crowded, high-heat, high-humidity conditions didn’t end walkability; they reimagined it.

Flip the climate and the principle holds. Toronto’s PATH proves that severe winters need not freeze out pedestrians. The (roughly) 30-kilometer underground network connects dozens of towers, two major transit hubs, and extensive retail. People don’t abandon walking in winter; they shift to a protected layer designed for the season. The lesson for Riyadh isn’t to go underground everywhere—it’s to build seasonal resilience into the pedestrian system.

Why Riyadh shouldn’t give up on walkability

Riyadh’s hottest months are fewer than half the year. That leaves long stretches of mornings, evenings, and entire shoulder seasons when walking can—and already does—work, especially with shade and wind. Moreover, walkability isn’t just about strolling in leisure weather; it’s about access: reaching schools, clinics, mosques, shops, and transit safely without a car, reducing congestion, improving air quality, and promoting everyday activity that lowers chronic disease risk.

Abandoning walkability would lock in car dependency, higher household transport costs, and hotter streets—because cars and wide, dark roads make cities even hotter. Investing in pedestrian comfort actually reduces ambient heat over time (trees, reflective surfaces, narrower crossings, fewer heat-absorbing lanes), improving conditions for everyone, including drivers.

A Riyadh playbook in five proposals

• Sheltered pedestrian spines. Create continuous shaded or covered corridors linking major bus and metro stations to jobs, universities, hospitals, and dense housing. Ensure routes are uninterrupted for at least 10–15 minutes of walking.
• Climate-controlled public nodes. Provide air-conditioned lobbies, galleries, or “cool rooms” at ground level every few hundred meters, especially at transit stops, intersections, and key public spaces.
• Green microclimate design. Use drought-tolerant canopy trees, pergolas, and high-albedo paving to lower perceived temperatures. Combine with water features or misting in plazas where feasible.
• Transit-first walking routes. Make shaded, direct, and safe connections to Metro and BRT stations a planning priority, with through-block passages in new developments that connect seamlessly to transit.
• Seasonal route strategies. Publish summer and winter pedestrian maps highlighting shaded paths, indoor shortcuts, and evening-friendly routes in the hot months, and open-air promenades in cooler weather.

If Singapore can walk in humidity, Hong Kong can walk in vertical density, and Toronto can walk in a snowstorm, Riyadh can walk in the heat. The work is not about denying the climate; it’s about designing for it.