{"title":"The impact of the built environment on human mobility patterns during Covid-19: A study of New York City's Open Streets Program","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.apgeog.2024.103429","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study uses the Open Streets Program in New York City as a natural experiment to test the effects of change in street use on foot traffic changes during COVID-19. In a two-stage-least-squares (2SLS) design, the Open Streets Program is used as an instrumental variable to isolate the exogenous effect of expanded streets for pedestrians on foot traffic patterns. We then estimate a difference-in-differences model that compares the change in foot traffic to public points-of-interests (POI) in neighborhoods that are part of the Open Streets Program with those that are not “before and after” the start of the city-wide program, in addition to other controls such as street types and weather characteristics to help reduce the error variance of the regression. We find that the Open Streets Program helped increase pedestrian activity at a neighborhood level, even when controlling for street types and other confounding temporal factors such as precipitation and temperature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48396,"journal":{"name":"Applied Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Geography","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143622824002340","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study uses the Open Streets Program in New York City as a natural experiment to test the effects of change in street use on foot traffic changes during COVID-19. In a two-stage-least-squares (2SLS) design, the Open Streets Program is used as an instrumental variable to isolate the exogenous effect of expanded streets for pedestrians on foot traffic patterns. We then estimate a difference-in-differences model that compares the change in foot traffic to public points-of-interests (POI) in neighborhoods that are part of the Open Streets Program with those that are not “before and after” the start of the city-wide program, in addition to other controls such as street types and weather characteristics to help reduce the error variance of the regression. We find that the Open Streets Program helped increase pedestrian activity at a neighborhood level, even when controlling for street types and other confounding temporal factors such as precipitation and temperature.
期刊介绍:
Applied Geography is a journal devoted to the publication of research which utilizes geographic approaches (human, physical, nature-society and GIScience) to resolve human problems that have a spatial dimension. These problems may be related to the assessment, management and allocation of the world physical and/or human resources. The underlying rationale of the journal is that only through a clear understanding of the relevant societal, physical, and coupled natural-humans systems can we resolve such problems. Papers are invited on any theme involving the application of geographical theory and methodology in the resolution of human problems.