by Adeleine Geitner
Abstract
In cities across the United States, residents and policymakers have passed measures to increase accessibility and walkability as a strategy for revitalizing disinvested downtowns. Alongside many of these measures, one-way roads have been reverted to two-way traffic due to their observed hindrance on walkability and pedestrian safety. In Hickory, North Carolina, planners perceive the land along the city’s downtown one-ways as less viable for development due to the speed and load of the traffic that they carry. This study observes the impact of one-way roads on the efficacy of a downtown pedestrian infrastructure plan that the city passed in 2014, aimed at increasing investment and development in the city’s downtown. It uses a difference-in-differences approach to measure how the indirect effects of this investment package are felt on one-way road properties relative to two-way road properties within the central business district.
Professor Charles Becker, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: R12; R58
Keywords: one-way streets; downtown redevelopment; property value appreciation; vacant land reclamation
Email for Access to Data
