Pedestrian routes and accessibility to urban services: An urban rhythmic analysis on people's behavior during the Covid-19

The Covid-19 emergency has changed the face of our cities, preventing most urban activities, limiting travel over large, medium and short distances and drastically reducing the number and intensity of social relationships. The restrictive measures imposed on the entire population have significantly influenced the experience of our built environment, as well as the assets of pedestrian and bicycle network to access essential urban services. On the one hand, these limitations have drastically imposed a change in the habits of people who now spend more time walking and cycling in the absence of other activities; on the other, they have revealed the need of a reorganization of pedestrians and cycle paths, as well as open spaces. The morphology of these urban spaces is unable to cope with the current situation of social distancing and to adapt to a new normality. Local decision makers face a new demand for urban space for pedestrian and cycle access that has not yet been explored. In order to contribute to future planning decisions, this paper proposes a comparison between pedestrian flows and accessibility of essential services before and during the lockdown, taking a decentralised area in the city of Aberdeen as a case study. As a conclusion, the paper proposes specific recommendations for urban planning in order to deal with emergency situations, such as mobility limitations due to an outbreak.