Dragging Downtown Foot Traffic Is the ‘New Normal’

Hybrid working has caused weekday traffic to remain stubbornly below the 2019 level, according to Springboard’s Diane Wehrle, Marketing & Insights Director, in her Downtown Pedestrian Traffic – September 2022 Report.

Wehrle went as far as to say a “new normal” has settled in.

“Given the weight of working days versus weekend days (five versus two), it seems unrealistic to hold out for a return of traffic to pre-Covid levels,” according to Wehrle in the report.

“Instead, what downtowns and their resident businesses must do, is to ensure that they have a better understanding of the new normal to be able to capitalize on the opportunities that this delivers.

She said that to some degree pedestrian traffic in September would have been impacted by Hurricane Ian that hit the east coast at the end of September, which led to a week-over-week decline during the last week of the month of -3.9%.

“However, even in the preceding four weeks (September comprises five weeks) the week over week increase in pedestrian traffic only averaged +0.2%,” she said.

Little Improvement Since Start of the Year

The difference from the start of the year is even more pronounced, according to Springboard.

From January 2022 onwards, weekday traffic has averaged -34.2% below 2019 versus -19.7% below at the weekend.

“It is perhaps not surprising that downtowns are facing such a challenge,” Wehrle writes. “Springboard’s regular Retail Consumer Survey has identified that around a half of all employees still work from home for at least part of the week, and this hasn’t declined in any meaningful way since the height of COVID.”

“Consumers have discovered that home working offers advantages in terms of both efficiency and quality of life and, having set themselves up to work effectively from home during the pandemic, they are reluctant to sacrifice this to return to full time office working.”