International District Neighborhood: 2005 Follow Up Survey

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The first ComNETsm surveys were conducted in the spring and summer of 2004 in four Seattle neighborhoods: Greenwood-Phinney Ridge, Capitol Hill, North Beacon Hill and the International District. There were a total of 1159 incidents recorded from these initial surveys. In May 2005, Sustainable Seattle conducted four “follow-up” surveys, in which volunteers surveyed the same routes as in the 2004 surveys, but rather than collect new conditions, this survey checked whether the original conditions still existed. If the surveyors did not find the original conditions, the incidents were recorded as “resolved ”. Of the 1159 incidents recorded in 2004, 386 were found to be “resolved” by the time of the follow up survey.

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This map demonstrates that a large amount of the resolved issues occurred on the corners throughout the neighborhood. Much of this was located in six locations. For the top ten incidents in the neighborhood we found that “other” was the highest occurring incident with less than 40% of the incidents resolved the following year. From “other” it is hard to determine if there was a trend in one particular incident being cleaned up. All the 57 features give “other” as an option. The next two most frequently occurring incidents were graffiti and trip hazards. Graffiti was the only one out of the top 3 occurring incidents to be above 50% resolved the following year. Although out of the top ten only 3 incidents were above 50% resolved, these being graffiti (65%), dumping (82%) and litter (58%).

Findings

Table 1: Most Frequently Collected Problems

Litter, large dumping and graffiti were problems which had more than 50% of the incidents resolved by 2005. Anecdotally, members of the International District community have said that the neighborhood feels cleaner. These type of indicators resonate with the perceptions of the neighborhood residents.

By Agency
There were 13 agencies with various jurisdictions throughout the neighborhood. 6 of the 13 agencies had resolved above 50% of the issues they were affiliated with.

The Top Three Agencies:

SDOT (Seattle Department of Transportation) was most frequently affiliated with the incidents collected in the International District. 128 of the total number of problems found in 2004 were affiliated with SDOT. Out of these 128 problems, 27% were resolved by 2005.
Property Owners and SPU (Seattle Public Utilities) had joint responsibility for 26 of the incidents found in 2004. Of these 26 incidents 65% were resolved in 2005.
Lastly, Property Owners and SDOT shared jurisdiction for 26 problems found during the street level surveys in 2004. Only one of these incidents was resolved in 2005.

Click here to download an excel spreadsheet with the Follow Up Survey data for the International District

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