Building Equity in Road Reconstruction

 Building Equity in Road Reconstruction

Roads in the City of Syracuse have it rough. Every day, thousands of cars drive along them, they endure brutal weather conditions and let’s not forget the copious amounts of road salt used to help drivers during the region’s tough winters. During the construction season, the City of Syracuse undertakes road reconstruction projects to repave and patch some of its roads.

But how does the city decide which roads should undergo reconstruction? Earlier this year, API worked with Corey Driscoll Dunham, the Chief Operating Officer of the City of Syracuse, the Department of Public Works (DPW), and the Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council (SMTC) to examine the City's road reconstruction process, better understand how factors like race and income are correlated with the roads the city has paved in the past and build safeguards into the process to ensure that historically under-served populations and demographic groups are not overlooked by the city’s road reconstruction efforts.

Quality of Sidewalks in the City of Syracuse - Analyzing Multiple Data Sources and Measures to Describe the Narrative

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 1a. Sidewalks in the City of Syracuse with 2010 Census Tract Boundaries (from SMTC)


Figure 1b. Sidewalks in Meadowbrook Area (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.

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.

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

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.

Development of the Snow Plow Map

Development of the Snow Plow Map

The creation of the mapping software took the form of three parts: Planning, Development, and Deployment. Planning was a 3.5 month process, while Development took 2.5 months, and deployment is ongoing. The following post details the first iteration of the program.

Tracking Snow Plows

Tracking Snow Plows

The City of Syracuse is one of the snowiest cities on record within the United States. Given this fact, it was deemed important that the residents of Syracuse should be able to see when their streets were plowed. During snow storms, the City of Syracuse sees an increased number of calls from residents telling us a street was not plowed or inquiring when their street was last plowed. By having a tool like the snow plow map we can be more transparent and open about our operations…

Plowing through the Data: The Winners!

Plowing through the Data: The Winners!

For the second year in a row, the City of Syracuse partnered with Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and AT&T to run a civic hackathon. More than 30 teams and 90 people signed up to participate, and ultimately 16 teams submitted projects. The winners had creative solutions that were well-conceived and built out enough that we could get an idea of how to implement in the future.

Snow Safety Summit: Next Steps

Snow Safety Summit: Next Steps

Last week, we hosted to Snow Safety Summit to get public feedback and ideas about these issues, with our biggest focus on clearing sidewalks. We structured this event differently than past meetings. It was “open house” style and consisted of several different stations where people could weigh in on different winter related topics. Approximately 150 people attended the Summit, and we were able to collect valuable feedback that we have already sorted through. You can review the ideas, suggestions, and comments that we received on our open data portal, DataCuse.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the Summit...

You're Invited! Snow Safety Summit

You're Invited! Snow Safety Summit

As many of you saw in the news a couple of weeks ago, the City of Syracuse is hosting a Snow Safety Summit on February 15th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Dr. Weeks Elementary School! The i-team will be helping to facilitate the event, and we’d love for you to join us!

Infrastructure Week 2017

Infrastructure Week 2017

Infrastructure Week - a national week of attention dedicated to elevating infrastructure as a critical issue impacting everyone - is this week.

In Syracuse, improving infrastructure is one of Mayor Miner’s top priorities, and if you have followed this blog, you will know that the innovation team has focused its efforts on infrastructure for more than a year. Our infrastructure report, detailing the work done so far, is available here.