What LA looks like on lockdown: safer streets, cheaper gas
Since California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency March 4 because of the coronavirus and COVID-19, a series of measures have limited movement and commerce and changed daily life in LA. Traffic collisions, crime and gas prices are down according to data gathered by Crosstown, a joint data-journalism project of the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and the Integrated Media Systems Center at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Contact: Ron Mackovich, rmackovi@usc.edu or 213.810.8583
Traffic collisions drop
On a normal weekday, Los Angeles averages about 150 traffic collisions a day. But as anti-virus measures were implemented in L.A., the number has dropped below 50.
Gas prices drop 11%
One welcome change comes in the form of gas prices, which have dropped 11% since January. Commuting has dropped dramatically, opening up the roads for deliveries and grocery runs.
Daily crime drops
Typically, almost 600 crimes occur each day in Los Angeles. During the first half of March, the number went down to an average of 477 a day.
Fewer arrests
As crime reports dropped, the LAPD has altered policies to prevent crowding in county jails and help stop the coronavirus from spreading.
How we did it
Directed by USC Annenberg’s Gabriel Kahn, professor of professional practice, the Crosstown team was able to quantify some of the impacts of the COVID-19 restrictions in the city of Los Angeles — all while working remotely (“six or seven Zoom meetings a day,” Kahn said) as USC’s campus remains closed and all instruction has moved online.
“We’re constantly looking at data that tells us something about life in Los Angeles: crime, traffic, homelessness, etc.,” Kahn said. “Over the past month, the data has been sending us very different signals as people adjust to a radically different daily routine. We’re now using that same data to chart the ways in which our life is different. As we get more data, we’ll be able to tell a more intricate, nuanced story of how we’re all adapting to the COVID-19 emergency.”
Publicly available LAPD data were examined, along with data on arrests and traffic. For neighborhood boundaries, we rely on the borders defined by the Los Angeles Times. For gas prices, we used data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
LAPD data only reflect crimes that are reported to the department, not how many crimes actually occurred. In making our calculations, we rely on data that agencies have made publicly available.
The LAPD does periodically update past crime reports with new information, which sometimes leads them to recategorize past reports. Those revised reports do not always automatically become part of the public database. We try to update our reporting when new data becomes available.
You can read the original full article by Kylie Storm and Ethan Ward here.
