What is the quality of the City of Syracuse sidewalks? This question though simple in its ask is much more difficult to answer. The first hurdle is there is a total of 500 to 600 miles of sidewalks in the City of Syracuse - too many miles to walk regularly to determine the quality of the sidewalk. We rely heavily on self-reporting of the residents of Syracuse, but there are many areas that go unreported for too long. The next hurdle is how to measure quality - there are easy things to measure like where condemnations are reported, but quality also includes ideas of presence/absence of sidewalks or having sidewalks without interruption that allow continuous access from points A to B. Measuring the quality of sidewalks is a complex, necessary task involving synthesis of many different datasets from different sources to paint the narrative of sidewalks in Syracuse so that residents can more easily get around the city and so the City can identify ways to better serve the community through sidewalk repair/clearance. So how do we go about answering what is the quality of sidewalks?
Where are the sidewalks?
The first question of interest when asked to assess the quality of sidewalks is identifying where sidewalks are located in the City, as well as where they are not. Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council (SMTC) provided a 2015 shapefile of sidewalks in the City along with a score that describes the presence/absence of sidewalks at the block level and the material type (i.e., continuous cement vs. mix of asphalt and cement). This aerial map estimated that there are almost 600 miles of sidewalks in the City of Syracuse. Figures 1a and 1b show sidewalk presence in the City (dark grey) and roads without sidewalks (light grey).
Figure 1a. Sidewalks in the City of Syracuse with 2010 Census Tract Boundaries (from SMTC)
Figure 1b. Sidewalks in Meadowbrook Area (from SMTC)
The tax and assessment data for each parcel in the city also includes an estimate of sidewalk length present for each parcel. Per the assessment data, there are approximately 500 miles of sidewalks in the City of Syracuse. Both of these estimates are very large mileage that would be difficult for the City to walk frequently enough to determine the current quality foot by foot. As with most data problems, we turned to several analyses to aggregate the data to see if we can better describe the narrative of sidewalk quality in the City.
Sidewalk Continuity
After getting a sense of the amount of sidewalks in the City, we turned to measures of quality. As mentioned above, the 2015 file from SMTC included a block-level score that indicates presence/absence and material used. There were 5 possible scores assessed for each block determined by aerial views:
0 = sidewalks are absent [light gray]
25 = partial sidewalk present in a block [gray]
50 = minor sidewalk gaps in the block and/or a mix of materials (concrete/asphalt) [light blue]
75 = no sidewalk gaps in the block, mix of materials (concrete/asphalt) [blue]
100 = continuous concrete sidewalk [dark blue]
Figure 2 shows the distribution of sidewalk presence and materials with colors in brackets above.
We aggregated the number of blocks with each score to the census tract level to identify census tracts with fewer continuous sidewalks (lower % of blocks with score 100/ higher % of blocks with score 0) and to determine correlations of census tract demographics (poverty and access to transportation) with sidewalk presence.
There is a moderate correlation (0.50) in census tracts with higher poverty and a higher percentage of blocks with continuous, uninterrupted sidewalks (% of blocks with score 100). The census tracts with a higher percentage of households with no vehicles are also moderately correlated (0.55) with a higher percentage of blocks with continuous, uninterrupted sidewalks (% of blocks with score 100).
Sidewalk Condemnations
Sidewalk presence and materials were not the only measures we had access to that allowed us to determine quality. We were able to access sidewalk condemnation locations in the past 4 years. Figure 3 shows approximate locations of sidewalk condemnations in the City of Syracuse in the past 4 years.
Figure 3. Sidewalk Condemnations in 2018-2021
Note: Condemnations in 2018 are purple, 2019 condemnations are green, 2020 condemnations are dark blue, and 2021 condemnations are light blue.
Recognizing that condemnations are clustered on streets, we first aggregated condemnations to the street block level, identifying street blocks with at least one condemnation on them in a given year. These block-level condemnations were then aggregated to the census tract level so we could run correlations with census tract demographics. There were no significant correlations between any census tract demographics we included (poverty, race, and households with a vehicle) and the number of sidewalk condemnations in 2018-2021.
Figure 4. Aggregated sidewalk condemnations to census tracts, 2018-2021
Note: The scale is from white to dark blue, where white means 0 condemnations and the darkest blue means 50+ condemnations.
Looking Forward
Keeping track of the quality of sidewalks will always be a difficult task just due to the sheer amount of sidewalks there are in the City. Yet it remains an important task as access to City services and locations is necessary for every resident. Being able to access public transportation or to be able to get to a job is something we never want to hinder and would want to improve on areas that need it. The City recently announced they will be taking on maintenance of the sidewalks in the City going forward (https://ourcity.syrgov.net/2021/06/fact-sheet-municipal-sidewalk-maintenance-program/ ), so we will continue to use measures of sidewalk quality and continue to improve our measurements.
