Priority Area Analysis - A GIS Project for Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan Update

Eliminating barriers of

PRIORITY AREA ANALYSIS A GIS Project for Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan Update

pedestrian system for seniors

UW Students Simin XU, Lei XIAO, Schell LIU, Yunjin LEE

Agency Brief The purpose of our project is to re-evaluate the priority area map based on equity component, in order to prepare for 2015 Pedestrian Master Plan Update. We focused on evaluating barriers of elder walkers, and we are hoping our project can lay a foundation as well as some methodologies and suggestions as reference for the updating works.

Key Findings By using different method, the priority map we produced is quite different from the original one made by Seattle Department of Transportation. The priority area in the original map are mostly concentrated in Downtown and south Seattle communities in, while in our map, these neighborhoods actually have less pedestrian barriers for elders. In contrast, we found that some well-known nice neighborhoods show higher barrier density on the map, which means it is inconvenient for elders to get access to basic daily services in these neighborhoods. There is also neighborhood and area that is analyzed to have more concentrated pedestrian barrier but have not been identified in the original priority map.

We think the reasons for this distribution pattern is topology of Seattle area and the development of this city. In Seattle, topology is a big challenge for seniors to walk. We could find that the priority areas largely follows the steep slopes.

Also, some senior some senior housing and facilities just locate on the steep neighborhood, maybe, partly because of the historical development reason, but also because of the development of the neighborhood, and even the city, more based on responding to needs of the 'normal' people. We do not realize these concentrations of resources of service facilities in some places with beautiful views and huge canopies may increase the elders' inconvenience when they walking.

Based on our findings, we came up with two recommendations on pedestrian system updating. One is that it should combine with facility relocation, especially ones that are daily needed and are primarily accessed on foot. Meanwhile, the updating process should encourage and apply the innovative designs and projects that relieve the steep slope problems for walkers.

Methodologies Our methodologies consist of four parts.

The first one is to identify the barriers for elders to access the daily service facilities. We focused on the physical barriers that may decrease or impact negatively the pedestrian activities of the elders, such as stairs, steep slope roads, overpasses, large tree trunks, and extremely long distance roads for walking. We marked points as barrier points if it locates on a routine that the elders traveling on foot to complete one of their daily errands. We marked roads as barrier points when the distance to access the targeted service facility is longer than 0.5 miles.

Secondly, we tried to define where elderly people live. It is difficult to precisely position the location of elderly people, for Census only offer block level population age data. Thus we use Census data in 2010 on block level to do this

1|Page

analysis. We selected blocks with elder population counts greater than average level of all Seattle block, and then point out the central point of these blocks as the start points for network analysis to the basic errands.

Thirdly, we defined the basic errands for elders. After literature research about elders walking destinations in North America, we categorized that the basic errands for elders into five types, including churches, banks, small stores, restaurants and other day care centers or clinics facilities. We assumed that these errands support the basic daily lives of elders and they intend to complete these trips on foot. Also, we assume that the elders will travel in a nearest routine to complete the errands.

Lastly, we visualized the barriers into map for Pedestrian Master Plan Update. The barriers can be pointed out based on method aforementioned. And the map of the distribution of the barrier points will show the density of the barriers and then can give us an understanding on where the pedestrian system update should be happened properly.

During our research method, our first step is to figure out all the potentially physical barriers, except the long distance one, and the five type facilities. Then, we do network analysis to connect the elders with the nearest five-type service facilities, and figure out the barriers on the nearest routines and the distance of routines longer than 0.5 miles. Lastly, we transform the barrier distribution map into barrier density map. The details of this method are shown as follows.

Transferability of Approach To Client The study analyzed that there are several places in Seattle showing high barrier density on the map, and it represents that elders are having inconvenient to travel on foot. We should also pay attention to that some senior housing and facilities just locate on the steep neighborhood, maybe, partly because of the historical development reason, but also because of the development of the neighborhood, and even the city, more based on responding to needs of the ‘normal’ people. Therefore, through this study, we may advise that City of Seattle should evaluate the pedestrian system again, especially for elders and other disadvantages. City of Seattle can rethink where to allocate the facilities that target towards the elders and also consider the facilities that help the elders overcome the steep slopes. In this way, Seattle can make people easily walk in hilly places. Moreover, we may advice that pedestrian system updating should combine with facility relocation, especially the ones daily needed and should be primarily accessed on foot. Pedestrian system updating should encourage and apply the innovative designs and projects that relieve the steep slope problems for walkers.

2|Page

PROBLEM DEFINITION

Seattle Department of Transportation is in the very beginning process of updating Seattle’s Pedestrian Master Plan, which was adopted in 2009. The plan sets a main goal of “Making Seattle the Most Walkable City in the Nation”. It will ensure that dedicated funding for pedestrian projects from Bridging the Gap is spent wisely, charting a course for a more safe and comfortable pedestrian environment.1 To implement the strategy, in Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan, a series of priority maps were produced to help prioritizing pedestrian projects in the short-term as well as help the City make long-term decisions by informing the process of selecting and programming projects.2 These maps was a key component of the whole plan.

In the master plan, the strategy for prioritizing projects uses three components— vibrancy (or demand), equity, and corridor function—to recommend areas of the City for early implementation.3 The vibrancy map identifies existing destinations that are likely to generate pedestrian traffic and incorporates estimates of where people will be living and working in the future.4 The equity map identifies areas where pedestrian improvements will serve community residents with the greatest needs.5 The corridor function map prioritizes Seattle’s streets based on their character and role in the transportation network.6 Among these three criteria, our agency, Seattle Department of Transportation, emphasizes on the equity issue, stating that the equity map still leaves much room for a further analysis, though an Equity Map was completed in the original plan.7 The original priority map is needed to update for several reasons. Yet the original master plan mentions that the maps and projects listed in this plan provide information about

SDOT, “Building America’s Most Walkable City,” accessed March 9th, 2015, http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/PedSafetyBrochure.pdf.

1

2. Seattle.gov, “Seattle’s Strategy for Prioritizing Pedestrian Projects,” accessed Jan 26th, 2015, http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/pedestrian_masterplan/pmp_imp_priorities.htm.

3. Ibid.

SDOT, “High Priority Area,” assessed March 9th, 2015, http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/pedestrian_masterplan/pmp_imp_priorities_high.htm.

4

5

Ibid.

6

Ibid.

7

The Equity Map can be accessed on: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/pedestrian_masterplan/docs/Equity.pdf.

3|Page

areas for improvement, additional information is needed to determine the appropriate solution.8 These additional information are including the newly updated Census in 2010 as well as data from latest American Community Survey. Second, public comments received by Department of Transportation showed that there are high public concerns on equity issues.

Third, since the limitation of previous methodology for prioritization, our agency also suggested we use other methodology to provide them some different prospective thoughts or findings on their plan and evaluation system, in order to help them improve their evaluation. Moreover, as our agency said, the Pedestrian Master Plan should be re-evaluated every-five year, so evaluation and updating the prioritization process is one of the major tasks in the 2015 Pedestrian Master Plan Update. All of these place demand for us to refresh the priority map with the plan to serve the decision making.

PROJECT QUESTION

The task for this group work is to figure out how to refresh the Equity Map for priority area analysis in updating Seattle’s Pedestrian Master Plan. In order to do that, we first start by looking at the definition of equity. The Seattle’s Pedestrian Master Plan in 2009 defines equity as to “serve people with greatest needs”, which corresponds with John Rawls’ second principle, that is to “provide services to the least-advantage groups”.9 In the Plan, six groups of least-advantage have been figured out including low income, low auto ownership, people with disabilities, obesity, chronic disease and low physical activity. 10 Also, this definition can be used in infrastructure delivery and also be measured by available data. Thus, we deemed the equity definition in Seattle Pedestrian Plan is not a problem, though it may not as complete as everyone expects.

However, the equity map uses the static data to make the analysis. All the data used in the model are the population proportion, of the least-advantage people aforementioned, living

8. Seattle.gov, “Project Recommendations,” accessed Jan 26th, 2015, http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/pedestrian_masterplan/pmp_imp_priorities.htm.

9. John Rawls, A theory of justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971).

10. Seattle.gov, “Equity,” accessed Jan 26th, 2015, http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/pedestrian_masterplan/pmp_imp_eq.htm.

4|Page

in different areas. The underlying assumption here is that these disadvantaged people will not move out from where they live in now to other places in the future. If so, the pedestrian improvement happened in these priority areas will make a better walkable and equitable city.

But actually, people usually move around the city every several years for different reasons, especially for some of the disadvantaged persons such as low income not owning personal vehicles. Further, the improvement of the pedestrian system may increase the property value, which may adversely facilitate families to move out of these areas. So the equity issue is still there, remaining unfixed.

Thus, we started this analysis from another perspective, looking at what makes these disadvantaged people disadvantaged. According to Mike Oliver, disability is not a product of bodily pathology, but of specific social and economic structures, which are responsible for the exclusion of disabled people from their full participation in mainstream social activities.11 The city system is designed for the “normal” people and there are a lot of barriers for the leastadvantage people to use the pedestrian system, and this system designed for “normal” people is the only system disadvantage groups have to rely on. Thus, how to make an equity map based on eliminating the barriers of the pedestrian system for the least-advantage people is what we want to do.

To narrow down our study scope, we only select senior population as our specific service group because this group is significant to help capture the flaws of pedestrian system.

Moreover, the elderly population (above 65 years) accounts 10.8% of total Seattle population, and this percentage will enlarge in the future. Aging population, undoubtedly, is an important issue facing this city. So the main purpose of this project is to figure out the priority pedestrian map for the retired, elder residents who can live independently without any serious disabilities in term of the barriers in pedestrian system of city of Seattle.

11. Mike Oliver, The Politics of Disablement, 1990.

5|Page

METHODOLOGY IDENTIFY THE BARRIERS FOR ELDERS TO ACCESS THE DAILY SERVICE FACILITIES. We are focusing on the physical barriers that may negatively impact the invitingness of elderly to walk, such as stairs, steep slope roads, overpasses, large tree trunks, and extremely long-distance segment for walking.

If these barriers locates within 0.5 miles distance, a routine distance that people traveling on foot, from where they live to their daily errands, this barrier will be marked as a barrier point. If the distance to access the targeted service facility is longer than 0.5 miles, this road will be marked as a barrier.

IDENTIFY W HERE ELDERLY PEOPLE LIVE Since Census only provides block level population age data, it is difficult to precisely position the location of elderly people. So we use Census data in 2010 on block level to do this analysis. We selected blocks with elder population counts greater than average level of all Seattle block, and then point out the central point of these blocks as the start points for network analysis to the basic errands.

DEFINE THE BASIC ERRANDS FOR ELDERS. From literature review about elders walking destinations in North America, we found that the basic errands for elders could be categorized into five types, including churches, banks, small stores, restaurants and others (eg. day care centers, clinics). These errands can support the daily lives of elders and they intend to complete these trips on foot. Also, we assume that the elders will travel in a nearest routine to complete the errands.

6|Page

VISUALIZING THE BARRIERS INTO PRIORITY MAP FOR PEDESTRIAN MASTER PLAN UPDATE. The barriers can be pointed out based on method aforementioned. And the map of the distribution of the barrier points will show the density of the barriers and then can give us an understanding on where the pedestrian system update should be happened proprietarily.

Therefore, our revised method is clearly translated into three steps. The first step is to figure out all the potentially physical barriers, except the long distance one, and the five type facilities. And then, we do network analysis to connect the elders with the nearest five-type service facilities, and figure out the barriers on the nearest routines and the distance of routines longer than 0.5 miles. Lastly, we transform the barrier distribution map into barrier density map. The details of this method are shown as follows.

DATA DICTIONARY DATA USED IN FINAL ANALYSIS Data Layers

Sources

Last Updated

Data Type/Attributes

Uses

Limitation

Pedestrian Facility Barrier (Stairs and Overpass)

King County GIS data – Metro Transportation Network in King County for Pedestrian Mode

Refreshed every 2 weeks

Object-oriented/ type of roads, marked as “stair” and “opass”.

Figuring out where stairs and overpasses are.

-

Pedestrian network

King County GIS data – Metro Transportation Network in King County for Pedestrian Mode

Object-oriented

Pick out pedestrians.

Exclusions of drives, expresses, highways, freeways, ramps, tunnels and rails, for network analysis

The Shapefile data is huge and includes many other data, need to pick out we need.

General Errands/ Dailyservice Facilities

Seattle Parcel GIS data from King County GIS center

Objectoriented/present use

Picking out 5 types of elderly general errands, also turn to points for network analysis

-

Flat File/P0120020P0120025; P0120044P0120049; LOGRECNO

Join with Seattle block GIS object so that we know the elderly population in each blocks, also for calculating average level in Seattle and find those greater than average

Only have block-level population data, cannot pinpoint the specific location

65 year and over population by block level

2010 Census data from WAGDA

1/25/2015

3/4/2015

2010

7|Page

Commercial Senior Properties

King County Assessor

Seattle block GIS data

2010 Census data from WAGDA

Seattle DEM

Don’t know source, pick it from Exc08

Trees

WAGDA

Flat File/ Major; Minor

Create PIN based on Major and Minor, and join it with parcel files to find where elders live in

Data processing takes long time

Object oriented/ LOGRECNO

To join with elder population data mentioned above, also convert them into points for network analysis

-

Don’t know

Object-oriented/ elevation

For slope analysis to pick out where slope larger than 5% (we deemed over 5% as barrier for elders)

02/2012

Object-oriented/ vegetation diameter

For picking out those with diameter larger than 10 feet as barriers

10 feet as barrier may not be accurate

3/06/2015

2010

OTHER DATA USED IN ANALYSIS PROCESS Data Layers

Sources

Last Updated

Data Type/Attributes

Uses

Limitation

Extent of Water Bodies and Land

WAGDA

1999

Object-oriented/ Feature

Pick out waterbody in Seattle for better map visualization

-

Data Profile Flat file/ longitude; latitude; year

To visualize crime in 2014 for future evaluating neighborhood safety since elders’ location choice mostly based on safety concern, though not very helpful in this analysis

Need to add x, y coordinates data in GIS and convert it into objectoriented data file, which takes long time

Object-oriented

Analyze if bus network/services are able to cover locations senior people need to get access to.

Complicated analysis when doing initial model running, so leave out

Object-oriented

See whether dailyservice facilities are within the walking distance to bus stops.

They are all within walking distance, so leave out

Seattle Crime Record 2012

Seattle.gov https://data.seattl e.gov/PublicSafety/crimeincidents/d426fwvp

Bus network and service

King County GIS data – Metro Transportation Network in King County for Bus Mode

Bus Stops

King County GIS data – Metro Bus Stops in King County

2015

1/25/2015

1/25/2015

8|Page

PROJECT FINDINGS (MAPS AND GRAPHS) PEDESTRIAN BARRIERS TO STORES

PEDESTRIAN BARRIERS TO RESTAURANTS

9|Page

PEDESTRIAN BARRIERS TO CHURCHES

PEDESTRIAN BARRIERS TO BANKS

10 | P a g e

PEDESTRIAN BARRIERS TO OTHER USES

OVERALL PEDESTRIAN PRIORITY MAP

11 | P a g e

ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION OF PROJECT FINDINGS RESULT ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION By using different method, the priority map we produced is quite different from the original one made by Seattle Department of Transportation. In the original map, the priority area are concentrated in Downtown and south Seattle communities like Georgetown, Beacon Hill, Columbia City, Rainier Valley and Rainier Beach. While in our map, these neighborhoods are actually having less pedestrian barrier for elders walking. In contrast, we found that some lovely neighborhoods like Queen Anne, Capital Hill, and Olympic Hill are showing higher barrier density on the map, which means in these neighborhoods, elders are actually walking inconvenient to get basic daily services. Another neighborhood which analyzed to have more concentrated pedestrian barrier is North admiral, which also have not been identified in the original priority map. Pedestrian Barriers are also distributed in Ballard and Green Lake.

12 | P a g e

Reasons for this distribution pattern is not hard to find. Topology plays an important role. In Seattle, topology is a big challenge for seniors to walk. We could find that the priority areas largely follows the steep slopes. Also, some senior some senior housing and facilities just locate on the steep neighborhood, maybe, partly because of the historical development reason, but also because of the development of the neighborhood, and even the city, more based on responding to needs of the 'normal' people. We do not realize these concentrations of resources of service facilities in some places with beautiful views and huge canopies may increase the elders' inconvenience when they walking.

13 | P a g e

Queen Anne is a beautiful and quiet neighborhood, yet is also a hilly area not ideal for elderly walking.

The routes from where elders live to their nearest daily facilities need to across hillsides, which is not convenient for elders.

POLICY IMPLICATION/SUGGESTIONS 

In this analysis, we start by redefining inequality, which is not low-priority characteristics of people, but the barriers or pedestrian system for least-advantage people. To narrow down our study scope, we only analyze senior population in Seattle by using GIS to find the physical elements of pedestrian environment related with the barriers for the elders. Our result showed large difference with the original priority map. Some neighborhood such as Queen Anne and Capital Hill actually is not very walkable for seniors but were not list in the original priority map, which means different define of the question would lead to completely different result which guide future policy making and implementation. So how to define the question – what is equity and walk makes a pedestrian system not walkable for disadvantage groups is extremely important. Policy making should consider more about the nature of the problem.



Policy making should consider more about the process. The priority areas in the original priority map are those where disadvantage residents concentrated now. But these people are likely to move out from their current living areas in the future. Longitudinal change need to be considered when doing priority analysis.

14 | P a g e



Pedestrian system updating should encourage and apply the innovative designs and projects that relieve the steep slope problems for walkers.



Some places, especially the coastal or lakeside areas, concentrated plenty of networks that make elders travel too long to get daily facilities on foot. In where length barrier calculated, there should be install some benches.



Pedestrian system updating should combine with facility relocation, especially the ones daily needed and those primarily accessed by foot.

We may advice that City of Seattle evaluate the pedestrian system again, especially for elders and other disadvantages. City of Seattle can rethink where to allocate the facilities that target towards the elders and also consider the facilities that help the elders overcome the steep slopes.

LIMITATION 

In our analysis, we define slope, stairs, overpass, and tree with 0.5 mile walking distance from elder residence to nearest facilities as barriers for elders to walk. For those distance larger than 0.5 mile but less than 1 mile, we also deem it as barriers since elders may walk 1 mile if there are reliable benches for them to have rest. But we simply turned the route with 0.5-1 mile as bench barrier (point). So the location of the bench barrier is inaccurate. For those larger than 1 mile, we also used this method to produce the length barrier. Thus, our final result could only show a general direction of where priority should happen, cannot guide more specific link level decision making. 

Current analysis only consider those area

with walking distance to basic facilities.

However, people may take transit to other places like museums and libraries etc. most often. In future analysis, we should also consider the physical barriers from where seniors live in to transit stations, as well as from transit stations to public facilities. In Seattle, public transit station are within walking distance 15 | P a g e

to almost everywhere of Seattle, except places along the coastline. So there is almost no length barrier from transit station to senior residence or to public facilities.

But trip chain may happen when people transfer from a bus line to another one. These people may walk a distance from a bus stop to another one. So to figure out physical barriers within walking links between bus stops is also valuable.

However, how to calculate transit transfer is a technique challenge. 

In our initial report, future movement of

senior residents is in our consideration. Though there may be a great many other variables which affect elderly residential location choice, we only use safety index a pilot to start considering longitudinal change when doing analysis since existing literature found that safety is the most significant issue that impacts elder location choice. We use crime as one of our variable to measure safety. Areas with less crime rate would attract elderly people to move in, doing pedestrian network analysis in these potential areas may provide more ideas for prioritization.

However, resident location choice is complicate, elderly may trade-off safety with other more important variables, and crime incident number sometimes could not reflect safety condition for an area with large population since more population, more probability crime happens. So at last, we give up this measurement.

16 | P a g e