I have conducted recent interviews with businesses on North and Clark Streets, Richmond, in order to better understand the context of my Streets Without Cars project. The interviews were split into two parts: one was about you, and your current experience of the street; the second was about what you want your future street to be.
The first half of the interview addressed:
- Types of businesses and age of workers.
- How you get to work, and company hours.
- Size of business, if you rent and how long you have been there.
- Company owned cars / bicycles.
Here is what I discovered:
Based on these findings, I came up with the following conclusions:
- There is a wide range and even spread of different commercial enterprises on the street.
- Majority of workers use cars to, from and during work.
- Although very few businesses own their property, the average occupancy is lengthy: 8.2 years.
- Street use during weekends is split evenly between daylight and night time hours.
- Although a majority of businesses are open during the day, there is notable activity at night.
- About 60% of businesses have company owned cars.
It was also important to get data on how the street is used in its current state. Given the commercial nature of the street, the answer was almost exclusively for parking, dispatch and deliveries.
I also investigated:
- Volume of dispatch / deliveries per week.
- If you require on street car parking.
Based on this, I came up with the following conclusions:
- Over 50% of businesses use the street as their parking area.
- There are many dispatches / deliveries per week, including 24 that involve a truck.
Image sources
- Business type, ownership, travel, this and subsequent images copyright of author.
- Operating hours.
- Other statistics.
- Street use.
Streets without Cars 