Indicator Rationale
Liveable neighbourhoods have a street network which promotes walking and cycling around the local area. Street connectivity describes how well connected streets are to each other and is typically measured as the density of intersections in a given area.
Grid-style road layouts tend to have higher street connectivity as they provide residents with multiple direct and short routes between places. On the other hand, cul-de-sac and curvilinear layouts generally have lower street connectivity. This discourages walking and cycling because routes tend to be longer and less direct and there are fewer routes from which to choose.
Relevant Sustainable Development Goals
Measures
Street connectivity
Methodology
Street connectivity was calculated as the number of intersections of three or more streets per square kilometer in the local area, with the local area defined as the walkable road network within 1.6km, buffered by 50m.
To calculate this measure, two datasets were used in the GIS analysis, a pedestrian road network and sample points.
Intersection points were derived from the pedestrian road network where three or more streets intersected.
For each sample point, a 1.6km street network buffer was created to represent the local walkable neighbourhood based on the pedestrian road network. This dataset was created by selecting all walkable roads (or parts thereof) within 1.6km network distance of each sample point and buffering these roads by 50m on each side. The resulting dataset was a polygon feature for each sample point.
The GIS was used to calculate the area of each polygon in square kilometers and count the number of intersections within each.