City parks and slow streets: A utility-based access and equity analysis

Gregory Macfarlane

Brigham Young University

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3999-7584

Carole Turley Voulgaris

Harvard Graduate School of Design

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0556-924X

Teresa Tapia

StreetLight Data, Inc.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2022.2009

Keywords: Accessibility, Passive data, Location choice, Parks


Abstract

During the spring and summer of 2020, cities across the world responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic by converting roadway facilities into open pedestrian spaces. These conversions improved access to public open space, but measuring the variation in that improvement among different populations requires clear definitions of access and methods for measuring it. In this study, we evaluate the change in a utility-based park accessibility measure resulting from street conversions in Alameda County, California. Our utility-based accessibility measure is constructed from a park activity location choice model we estimate using mobile device data – supplied by StreetLight Data, Inc. – representing trips to parks in that county. The estimated model reveals heterogeneity in inferred affinity for park attributes among different sociodemographic groups. We find, for example, that neighborhoods with more lower-income residents and those with more residents of color show a greater preference for park proximty while neighborhods with higher incomes and those with more white residents show a greater preference for park size and amenities. We then apply this model to examine the accessibility benefits resulting from COVID-19 street conversions to create a set of small park-like open spaces; we find that this has been a pro-social policy in that Black, Hispanic, and low-income households receive a disproportionate share of the policy benefits, relative to the population distribution.


Author Biographies

Gregory Macfarlane, Brigham Young University

Assistant professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Brigham Young University.

Carole Turley Voulgaris, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Carole Turley Voulgaris is an assistant professor of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Teresa Tapia, StreetLight Data, Inc.

Teresa Tapia is a customer success manager at StreetLight Data, Inc.


References

Anas, A. 1983. Discrete choice theory, information theory and the multinomial logit and gravity models. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 17(1):13–23.

Arel-Bundock, V. 2020. Model summary: Summary tables and plots for statistical models and data: Beautiful, customizable, and publication ready. R package version 0.6.3, URL https://vincentarelbundock.github.io/modelsummary/.

Baas, J. M., A. Ewert, and D. J. Chavez. 1993. Influence of ethnicity on recreation and natural environment use patterns: Managing recreation sites for ethnic and racial diversity. Environmental Management, 17(4):523.

Bancroft, C., S. Joshi, A. Rundle, M. Hutson, C. Chong, C. C. Weiss, J. Genkinger, K. Neckerman, and G. Lovasi. 2015. Association of proximity and density of parks and objectively measured physical activity in the United States: A systematic review. Social Science & Medicine, 138:22–30. ISSN 02779536. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.05.034.

Ben-Akiva, M. and S. R. Lerman. 1985. Discrete choice analysis: Theory and application to travel demand. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bernardin, V. L., J. L. Bowman, M. Bradley, J. Chen, N. Ferdous, and Y. Lee. 2018. Incorporating Big Data in an Activity-Based Travel Model: The Chattanooga Case Study. In TRB Annual Meeting. Transportation Research Board. URL https://trid.trb.org/view/1495930.

Boisjoly, G. and A. El-Geneidy. 2016. Daily fluctuations in transit and job availability: A comparative assessment of time-sensitive accessibility measures. Journal of Transport Geography, 52:73–81. doi: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.03.004.

Boisjoly, G. and A. M. El-Geneidy. 2017. How to get there? A critical assessment of accessibility objectives and indicators in metropolitan transportation plans. Transport Policy, 55:38–50. doi: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.12.011.

Bolla, R. and F. Davoli. 2000. Road traffic estimation from location tracking data in the mobile cellular network. In 2000 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference. Conference Record (Cat. No.00TH8540), pp. 1107–1112. IEEE. ISBN 0-7803-6596-8. doi: 10.1109/WCNC.2000.904783.

Bruton, C. M. and M. F. Floyd. 2014. Disparities in built and natural features of urban parks: Comparisons by neighborhood level race/ethnicity and income. Journal of Urban Health, 91(5):894–907. doi: 10.1007/s11524-014-9893-4.

Byrne, J. 2012. When green is white: The cultural politics of race, nature and social exclusion in a Los Angeles urban national park. Geoforum, 43(3):595–611. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.10.002.

Byrne, J. and J. Wolch. 2009. Nature, race, and parks: Past research and future directions for geographic research. Progress in Human Geography, 33(6):743–765. doi: 10.1177/0309132509103156.

Calabrese, F., G. Di Lorenzo, L. Liu, and C. Ratti. 2011. Estimating origin-destination flows using mobile phone location data. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 10(4):36–44. doi: 10.1109/mprv.2011.41.

Chang, H.-S. and C.-H. Liao. 2011. Exploring an integrated method for measuring the relative spatial equity in public facilities in the context of urban parks. Cities, 28(5):361–371. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2011.04.002.

City of Alameda. 2020. Slow Streets Alameda. Accessed July 2022, URL https://www.alamedaca.gov/ALERTS-COVID-19/Slow-Streets-Alameda.

City of Berkeley. 2020. Berkeley News Main Page. URL https://www.cityofberkeley.info/City_Manager/Press_Releases/2020/2020-06-10_Healthy_Streets_will_support_outdoor_recreation_during_COVID-19.aspx.

City of Oakland. 2020. Oakland Slow Streets. URL https://www.oaklandca.gov/projects/oakland-slow-streets.

City Parks Alliance. 2019. Why City Parks Matter. URL https://cityparksalliance.org/about-us/why-city-parks-matter/.

Clifton, K. J., P. A. Singleton, C. D. Muhs, and R. J. Schneider. 2016. Development of destination choice models for pedestrian travel. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 94:255–265. ISSN 0965-8564. doi: 10.1016/j.tra.2016.09.017.

Combs, T., C. F. Pardo, Epiandes, MobilityWorks, and Datasketch. 2020. The ”shifting streets” COVID-19 mobility dataset. Accessed: 2020-12-10, URL http://pedbikeinfo.org/resources/resources_details.cfm?id=5235.

Combs, T. S. and C. F. Pardo. 2021. Shifting streets COVID-19 mobility data: Findings from a global dataset and a research agenda for transport planning and policy. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 9:100322.

Compton, N. 2020. Parks and the future: Now is the moment to transform outdoor equity across the nation. In Parks and the Pandemic: A Trust for Public Land Special Report, pp. 11–12. San Francisco, CA: The Trust for Public Land.

Croissant, Y. 2019. mlogit: Multinomial Logit Models. URL https://cran.r-project.org/package=mlogit.

de Dios Ortúzar, J. and L. G. Willumsen. 2011. Modelling transport. John Wiley & Sons.

de Jong, G., A. Daly, M. Pieters, and T. van der Hoorn. 2007. The logsum as an evaluation measure: Review of the literature and new results. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 41(9):874–889. ISSN 0965-8564. doi: 10.1016/J.TRA.2006.10.002.

Dong, X., M. E. Ben-Akiva, J. L. Bowman, and J. L. Walker. 2006. Moving from trip-based to activity-based measures of accessibility. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 40(2):163–180. ISSN 0965-8564. doi: 10.1016/J.TRA.2005.05.002.

Doucette, M. L., A. Tucker, M. E. Auguste, A. Watkins, C. Green, F. E. Pereira, K. T. Borrup, D. Shapiro, and G. Lapidus. 2021. Initial impact of COVID-19’s stay-at-home order on motor vehicle traffic and crash patterns in Connecticut: an interrupted time series analysis. Injury Prevention, 27(1):3. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2020-043945.

Dunnington, D. 2021. Ggspatial: Spatial Data Framework for ggplot2. R package version 1.1.5, URL https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ggspatial.

Fainstein, S. S. 2010. The Just City. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1st edition. ISBN 978-0-8014-7690-7.

Fischer, J. and M. Winters. 2021. COVID-19 street reallocation in mid-sized Canadian cities: Sociospatial equity patterns. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 112(3):376–390. ISSN 1920-7476. doi: 10.17269/s41997-020-00467-3.

Floyd, M. F. and K. J. Shinew. 1999. Convergence and divergence in leisure style among whites and African Americans: Toward an interracial contact hypothesis. Journal of Leisure Research, 31(4):359–384.

Friedrich, M., K. Immisch, P. Jehlicka, T. Otterstätter, and J. Schlaich. 2010. Generating origin destination matrices from mobile phone trajectories. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2196:93–101. doi: 10.3141/2196-10.

Geurs, K. T. and B. van Wee. 2004. Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography, 12(2):127 – 140. ISSN 0966-6923. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2003.10.005.

Glaser, M. and K. J. Krizek. 2021. Can street-focused emergency response measures trigger a transition to new transport systems? Exploring evidence and lessons from 55 US cities. Transport Policy, 103:146–155. ISSN 0967-070X. doi: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.01.015.

Gobster, P. H. 2002. Managing urban parks for a racially and ethnically diverse clientele. Leisure Sciences, 24(2):143–159.

GreenInfo Network. 2019. California Protected Areas Database. URL https://www.calands.org/cpad/.

Hagberg, A. A., D. A. Schult, and P. J. Swart. 2008. Exploring network structure, dynamics, and function using networkx. In G. Varoquaux, T. Vaught, and J. Millman, eds., Proceedings of the 7th Python in Science Conference, pp. 11 – 15. Pasadena, CA USA.

Handy, S. L. and D. A. Niemeier. 1997. Measuring Accessibility: An Exploration of Issues and Alternatives. Environment and Planning A, 29(7):1175–1194. ISSN 0308-518X. doi: 10.1068/a291175.

Heller, A. 1976. The Theory of Need in Marx. London: Allison & Busby, 1st edition. ISBN 978-0-85031-174-7.

Ho, C.-h., V. Sasidharan, W. Elmendorf, F. K. Willits, A. Graefe, and G. Godbey. 2005. Gender and ethnic variations in urban park preferences, visitation, and perceived benefits. Journal of Leisure Research, 37(3):281–306. doi: doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2005.11950054.

Huang, A. and D. Levinson. 2015. Axis of travel: Modeling non-work destination choice with GPS data. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 58:208–223. ISSN 0968-090X. doi: 10.1016/J.TRC.2015.03.022.

Husbands, W. and P. Idahosa. 1995. Ethnicity and recreation behaviour: a review and critique of the literature. Canadian Ethnic Studies= Études Ethniques au Canada, 27(1):84.

Hussain, B. 2020. Parks and policy: As park officials reimagine policy in real time, equitalble access must drive decision-making. In Parks and the Pandemic: A Trust for Public Land Special Report, pp. 7–8. San Francisco, CA: The Trust for Public Land.

Hutchison, R. 1987. Ethnicity and urban recreation: Whites, blacks, and hispanics in chicago’s public parks. Journal of Leisure Research, 19(3):205–222.

Irwin, P. N., W. C. Gartner, and C. C. Phelps. 1990. Mexican-american/anglo cultural differences as recreation style determinants. Leisure Sciences, 12(4):335–348.

John Paul II. 1991. Centesimus Annus. Encyclical Letter. Vatican: Vatican. URL https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html.

Kabisch, N. and D. Haase. 2014. Green justice or just green? Provision of urban green spaces in Berlin, Germany. Landscape and urban planning, 122:129–139. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.11.016.

Kaczynski, A. T., J. Schipperijn, J. A. Hipp, G. M. Besenyi, S. A. Wilhelm Stanis, S. M. Hughey, and S. Wilcox. 2016. ParkIndex: Development of a standardized metric of park access for research and planning. Preventive Medicine, 87:110–114. ISSN 0091-7435. doi: 10.1016/J.YPMED.2016.02.012.

Kinnell, J. C., M. F. Bingham, A. F. Mohamed, W. H. Desvousges, T. B. Kiler, E. K. Hastings, and K. T. Kuhns. 2006. Estimating site choice decisions for urban recreators. Land Economics, 82(2):257–272. doi: 10.3368/le.82.2.257.

Komanduri, A., L. Schewel, D. Beagan, and D. Wong. 2017. Using big data to develop comparative commercial vehicle metrics for port traffic at major ports in the U.S. In TRB Annual Meeting. Transportation Research Board. URL https://trid.trb.org/View/1438797.

Kressner, J. D. 2017. Synthetic household travel data using consumer and mobile phone data. NCHRP IDEA Project 184, URL https://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/176216.aspx.

Loukaitou-Sideris, A. 1995. Urban form and social context: Cultural differentiation in the uses of urban parks. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 14(2):89–102.

Macfarlane, G. S., N. Boyd, J. E. Taylor, and K. Watkins. 2021. Modeling the impacts of park access on health outcomes: A utility-based accessibility approach. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 48. doi: 10.1177/2399808320974027.

Madzia, J., P. Ryan, K. Yolton, Z. Percy, N. Newman, G. LeMasters, and C. Brokamp. 2018. Residential greenspace association with childhood behavioral outcomes. The Journal of Pediatrics. ISSN 0022-3476. doi: 10.1016/J.JPEDS.2018.10.061.

Martens, K. 2012. A justice-theoretic exploration of accessibility measures. In K. T. Geurs, K. J. Krizek,and A. Reggiani, eds., Accessibility Analysis and Transport Planning. Edward Elgar Publishing Inc.

McCormack, G. R., M. Rock, A. M. Toohey, and D. Hignell. 2010. Characteristics of urban parks associated with park use and physical activity: A review of qualitative research. Health & Place, 16(4):712–726. ISSN 1353-8292. doi: 10.1016/J.HEALTHPLACE.2010.03.003.

McFadden, D. 1974a. The measurement of urban travel demand. Journal of Public Economics, 3(4):303–328.

McFadden, D. L. 1974b. Conditional Logit Analysis of ualitative Choice Behavior. In P. Zarembka, ed., Frontiers in Econometrics. New York: Academic Press.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 2012. Travel model development: Calibration and validation. https://mtcdrive.app.box.com/s/7crr7bwhromi2au42jnpp11fqe5l24xq.

Meyerhoff, J., A. Dehnhardt, and V. Hartje. 2010. Take your swimsuit along: the value of improving urban bathing sites in the metropolitan area of Berlin. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 53(1):107–124. ISSN 0964-0568. doi: 10.1080/09640560903399863. URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09640560903399863.

Monz, C., M. Mitrovich, A. D’Antonio, and A. Sisneros-Kidd. 2019. Using mobile device data to estimate visitation in parks and protected areas: an example from the nature reserve of Orange County, California. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration. ISSN 21606862. doi: 10.18666/JPRA-2019-9899.

Naboulsi, D., M. Fiore, S. Ribot, and R. Stanica. 2016. Large-Scale Mobile Traffic Analysis: A Survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(1):124–161. ISSN 1553-877X. doi: 10.1109/COMST.2015.2491361.

National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. 2012. Travel Demand Forecasting: Parameters and Techniques. NCHRP 716. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. ISBN 978-0-309-28255-0. doi: 10.17226/14665. URL http://www.nap.edu/catalog/14665.

Nussbaum, M. C. 2001. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. 3. Cambridge University Press.

Padgham, M., B. Rudis, R. Lovelace, and M. Salmon. 2017. OSMData. The Journal of Open Source Software, 2(14). doi: 10.21105/joss.00305.

Páez, A., D. M. Scott, and C. Morency. 2012. Measuring accessibility: positive and normative implementations of various accessibility indicators. Journal of Transport Geography, 25:141–153.

Pan, C., J. Lu, S. Di, and B. Ran. 2006. Cellular-Based Data-Extracting Method for Trip Distribution. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1945(1):33–39. ISSN 0361-1981. doi: 10.1177/0361198106194500105.

Payne, L. L., A. J. Mowen, and E. Orsega-Smith. 2002. An examination of park preferences and behaviors among urban residents: the role of residential location, race, and age. Leisure Sciences, 24(2):181–198. doi: 10.1080/01490400252900149.

Pereira, R. H. M., T. Schwanen, and D. Banister. 2017. Distributive justice and equity in transportation. Transport Reviews, 37(2). ISSN 0144-1647. doi: 10.1080/01441647.2016.1257660.

R Core Team. 2020. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.

Ram, K. and H. Wickham. 2018. Wesanderson: A Wes Anderson palette generator. R package version 0.3.6, URL https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=wesanderson.

Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as fairness: A restatement. Harvard University Press.

Recker, W. W. and L. P. Kostyniuk. 1978. Factors influencing destination choice for the urban grocery shopping trip. Transportation, 7(1):19–33. doi: 10.1007/BF00148369.

Rigolon, A., M. Browning, and V. Jennings. 2018. Inequities in the quality of urban park systems: An environmental justice investigation of cities in the United States. Landscape and Urban Planning, 178:156–169. ISSN 0169-2046. doi: 10.1016/J.LANDURBPLAN.2018.05.026.

Roll, J. 2019. Evaluating StreetLight Estimates of Annual Average Daily Traffic in Oregon. Oregon Department of Transportation, URL https://trid.trb.org/View/1630252.

Schlossberg, M., R. Lewis, A. Whalen, C. Haley, D. Lewis, N. Kataoka, and J. Larson-Friend. 2021.

Rethinking Streets During COVID-19: An Evidence-Based Guide to 25 Quick Redesigns for Physical Distancing, Public Use and Spatial Equity. Portland, Oregon: Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC).

Schweitzer, L. and A. Valenzuela. 2004. Environmental injustice and transportation: The claims and the evidence. Journal of Planning Literature, 18(4):383–398. ISSN 0885-4122. doi: 10.1177/0885412204262958.

Sen, A. 1999. Development as freedom. In J. Timmons Roberts, A. Bellone Hite, and N. Chorev, eds., The globalization and development reader: Perspectives on development and global change. Wiley Blackwell Sussex, second edition.

Siddiq, F. and B. D. Taylor. 2021. Tools of the trade? Journal of the American Planning Association, 87(4):497–511. ISSN 0194-4363. doi: 10.1080/01944363.2021.1899036.

Taylor, B. D. and A. Tassiello Norton. 2009. Paying for transportation: What’s a fair price? Journal of Planning Literature, 24(1):22–36. doi: 10.1177/0885412209347156.

Train, K. E. 2009. Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, second edition. doi: 10.1016/S0898-1221(04)90100-9.

Trust for Public Land. 2019. 2019 ParkScore Index. URL https://www.tpl.org/parkscore.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2019. uickFacts: Alameda County, California. URL https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/alamedacountycalifornia/PST045218.

Ussery, E. N., L. Yngve, D. Merriam, G. Whitfield, S. Foster, A. Wendel, and T. Boehmer. 2016. The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network Access to Parks Indicator: A National County-Level Measure of Park Proximity. Journal of park and recreation administration, 34(3):52. doi: 10.18666/JPRA-2016-V34-I3-7119.

Walker, K. 2019. tidycensus: Load US Census Boundary and Attribute Data as ’tidyverse’ and ’sf ’-Ready Data Frames. URL https://cran.r-project.org/package=tidycensus.

Washburne, R. F. 1978. Black under-participation in wildland recreation: Alternative explanations. Leisure Sciences, 1(2):175–189.

Williams, H. C. W. L. 1977. On the Formation of Travel Demand Models and Economic Evaluation Measures of User Benefit. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 9(3):285–344. doi: 10.1068/a090285.

Wu, C., X. Ye, Q. Du, and P. Luo. 2017. Spatial effects of accessibility to parks on housing prices in Shenzhen, China. Habitat International, 63:45–54. doi: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2017.03.010.

Yeo, I.-K. and R. A. Johnson. 2000. A new family of power transformations to improve normality or symmetry. Biometrika, 87:954–959.

Zhu, J. and X. Ye. 2018. Development of destination choice model with pairwise district-level constants using taxi GPS data. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 93:410–424. ISSN 0968-090X. doi: 10.1016/J.TRC.2018.06.016.