Pop-up Infrastructure’s Impact on Bikeshare Use: A Quasi-Experimental Approach
Topics:
Keywords: bikeshare; pop-up infrastructure; quasi-experiment; COVID-19
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Joshua H Davidson,
Stephanie J Nam,
Shriya Karam,
Megan S Ryerson,
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Abstract
The implementation of pop-up infrastructure to support active transportation – such as temporary road closures, non-permanent bike lanes, or timebound pedestrian streets – occurred in diverse environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such initiatives provided necessary space for outdoor recreation and allowed for social distancing. While these initiatives were often celebrated by active transportation advocates, there remains much to be learned regarding the effect of pop-up infrastructure on active transportation use during the pandemic and into the post pandemic period. In this paper, we utilize the example of one major roadway closure – Martin Luther King Drive (MLK) in Philadelphia – to investigate how bikeshare use may have altered in response to this pop-up infrastructure intervention. We employ a quasi-experimental approach that measures the effect of MLK’s closure and subsequent reopening on average daily bike share trip durations. We find that, even in the pandemic environment, where bikeshare trip durations increased overall, the pop-up infrastructure had an additive effect on the general positive trend. This suggests that either 1) the impact of the pop-up infrastructure spurred long term behavioral changes for users at nearby stations, 2) that newly added supportive and permanent infrastructure for cyclists on MLK helped sustain changes made during the pop-up period, or 3) some combination of both user behavior and infrastructure investment has yielded a sustained positive effect.
Pop-up Infrastructure’s Impact on Bikeshare Use: A Quasi-Experimental Approach
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Paper Abstract