Open Streets: 2010-2013
Project Dates: 2010-2013
With the Open Streets project we sought to measure the successes and challenges related to the St. Louis Open Streets and Ferguson (MO) Sunday Parkways .
Specifically we were interested in:
- Who attends Open Streets initiatives and are participants representative of the city’s population?
- What activities do participants do while at Open Streets and how active are they?
- Do Open Streets initiatives change awareness of active transportation and sense of community?
- Are there economic benefits to Open Streets?
Implications for Research and Practice
Through this project we produced a guide for measuring success (evaluation toolkit) that we hope is useful for researchers and practitioners.
Project Contact
Amy Eyler: aeyler@wustl.edu
Project Staff
Principal Investigators: J. Aaron Hipp and Amy Eyler
Co-Investigator: Chris Casey
Research Assistants: Jill Kuhlberg, Julie Lokuta, Genevieve Cheng, Rachel Smidt, Ben Glosenger
Project Partners
Alliance for Walking and Biking, Live Well Ferguson, Trailnet, Great Rivers Greenway, City of St. Louis, Southwest Garden Neighborhood Association, OpenStreetsProject.org, Ferguson Bicycle Shop
Funding Sources
Active Living Research (RWJF): #68899; “Supporting development and evaluation of strategies to increase participation of youths and families in St. Louis Open Streets events” (2011-2013)
Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging’s Global Aging Initiative, Washington University in St. Louis (Hipp, PI), “Open Streets to All: Older Adults and the Ciclovia Movement” (2014)
Related Resources
Open Streets Initiatives: Measuring Success Toolkit
The Open Streets Initiatives: Measuring Success toolkit provides cities, bicycle/pedestrian agencies, academics, and others interested in measuring the success of Open Streets initiatives a framework for capturing physical activity, participant counts, business buy-in, and other relevant measures.
Included in this toolkit are measures for communication, reach, activity hubs, participant counts, physical activity type and level, cost-benefit analysis, and local business evaluation. There are also examples of collected data, policy briefs and references to published work.