Application of Historical Routes of the Isfahan City in Creation of Tourism Walkway Network

In recent decades, economic crises, air pollution and departure of inhabitants from historical fabric of cities have revealed complications and the way of walking has changed to use private car. Walking is one of the oldest ways of moving from ancient times and has been the main basis for development of the routes since formation of cities. One of the approaches taken to reduce air pollution, increase citizens mobility and improve the city s economic level are walkways network. Particularly in historical sites where there are historical monuments and landuses, planning for designing tourism walkways is considered. The examples of walkways in Iran due to the discontinuity of routes are not responsive to solving problems and inviting tourists. So the objective of this article is to further analyze and discuss the role of historical routes in shaping urban walkway network to change mobility pattern. In order to this, methodology used is based on analysis of literature in these levels: First, theoretical framework were used by collecting library studies, and samples of experiences of the walkways in the historical sites using existing maps, scrolling and field observations reviewed. In this research, the maps of ancient routes and historical monuments of Isfahan (during the Seljuk and Safavid periods) and Maadis (natural routes) were considered as potential for creation of walkways, so overlapping them and linking two concepts of pedestrian and tourism has offered a coherent walkway network. The results show that paying attention to structure of old routes of historical fabrics can enhance the connections in Isfahan city structure and make coherent network in 6 steps: Identifying historical and main axis and nodes, Planning, Access and mobility, Land use, Urban spaces, Link and network, So urban policies and the ways of creating tourism walkway network can be expressed in executive design and construction.