ws 1b evidence from 125 us open streets

Evidence from 130 US Open Streets

Aaron Hipp and Alyssa Bird

Open Streets Summit, August 18, 2016

• 1968 – Seattle, WA – Bicycle Sundays

• 1974 – Westchester Co., NY – Bicycle Sundays

• 1983 – Wayne Co., MI – Saturdays in the Park

• 1999 – Phoenix, AZ – Silent Sundays

In 2012, there were 50 Open Streets programs in

the US

As of the end of 2015, there have been 121 Open

Streets programs

Now 133 US Cities have hosted Open Streets

From Bogota to Boone

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1967-2005 2006-2007 2008-2009 2010-2011 2012-2013 2014-2015

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Year of Initiation

Year of US Open Streets Initiation

US Programs

• 2 – 14 hours per date

• 0.2 – 51 miles

• Occur 1x per summer to 52x per year

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20

40

60

80

1 2 3 4 5-10 12+

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Event Dates per Year

US Open Streets Event Dates per Year

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10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+

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Length in Kilometers

Length of US Open Streets Programs (km)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

1% 20% 79%

05

1015202530354045

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9+Nu

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Duration in Hours

Duration of US Open Streets Programs

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Participants per Program Date

Partipants per US Open Streets Program Date

42%

45%

13%

Interested / Problem-Solving

Hesitant / Unconvinced

Unlikely / Impossible

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

12+ events per Year?

Evidence and Evaluation

• 75% of programs are evaluating

• 56% are evaluating more than

attendance and social media

likes / retweets

• Five (21%) working with local

university

Evaluation

• Attendance

• Enthusiasm / engagement

• Social media impressions

• Surveys

– Volunteers

– Academic partners

• Physical activity, businesses,

activity hubs, distance traveled,

perceptions, etc.

• Timing of evaluation

Attendance

• “We estimate the number of attendees

and we do that using a process that's

been used at Ciclovias across the world,

where people take tallies at certain

intervals as how many participants are

going by and then we plug that into an

Excel Spreadsheet to make us an

estimate of how many people were there,

for the whole day, based on how fast the

average speed of a walker and a biker

and a skater is.”

Enthusiasm and Social Media

• “We gauged it on participants and reactions that

we received from people coming to our table. It

was very, very positive. People are very excited.

As well as feedback from the merchants that

have been the donors and other people along

the route that participated, and as well as from

our Commissioner and the Mayor who receive

very positive feedback in general and that they

want it versus being upset with it.”

Survey

• “We do a lot of surveying, too. We

do like SurveyMonkey or fill form

survey to our participants that are

on social media afterward or

people that we’ve collected the

day of and their information. So

we kind of do it in a couple of

different ways, but we do it

internally.”

Academic Evaluation

Academic Evaluation

Academic Evaluation

Opportunities

Thank You!

• Thanks to Amy Eyler, Elizabeth Yarnall, Margaret van Bakergem, and Nathan

Miller

• 50+ organizers we have spoken with over the past four years

• Active Living Research, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and 8 80 Cities

• @drhipp jahipp@ncsu.edu