Open streets initiatives close streets temporarily to vehicle traffic so that people can use the street for walking, biking, dancing, socializing and other non-motorized forms of activity. The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) just released results from an independent survey conducted at San José, California’s second annual open streets event, Viva CalleSJ. The results are reported in A Survey of Viva CalleSJ Participants – San José, California 2016. Researchers found that the event attracted a diverse set of participants and that most got at least an hour of physical activity during the event.
San José closed six miles of streets on September 18, 2016, for Viva CalleSJ.An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets, nearly three times the number who attended the first Viva CalleSJ event in 2015. The event offered a wide range of activities, such as yoga, Zumba, soccer in the streets, music and dance performances, and live mural painting. There were also food trucks and other vendors.
The survey, a single-page, self-administered questionnaire available in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, was designed by MTI researchers to evaluate the event’s success and provide a comparison to a similar survey conducted in 2015. A total of 318 surveys were collected from a diverse set of participants. Some key findings include:
- People learned about the event in a variety of ways including word of mouth (41%), social media (33%), and flyers/posters (20%);
- The most popular way to access the event was by bicycle (51%), although nearly one-third came by motorized vehicle;
- The most popular organized activity along the route was watching entertainment (65%);
- Most respondents expected to spend money at the event, with 39% expecting to spend more than $20.
According to Dr. Asha Weinstein Agrawal, one of the report’s authors, “surveying at events such as Viva CalleSJ can be challenging because of the crowds and difficulty obtaining a truly random sample.” Planners for future events may want to consider alternative methods of surveying participants, such as online surveys.
