The US marked its third anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns last week, and not many celebrated, particularly those relying on downtown activity.

Springboard's February report on downtown pedestrian traffic presented what it called, "clear evidence of the contribution that the working population makes to the vitality of downtowns, [which] demonstrates that the ability of downtowns to attract back daytime traffic will determine the extent to which they can bridge the gap that emerged during [the pandemic]."

For the good, Springboard said that pedestrian traffic in US downtowns rose by +3.4% month over month from January to February, compared with a drop of -17.5% from December 2022 to January 2023. It also experienced the largest year-over-year increase since October 2022 when it rose by +22.4%, having come in at a +20.4% spike compared to February 2022.