Trees, ground vegetation, sidewalks, cycleways: users’ preferences and economic values for different elements of an urban street—a case study in Taipei

Streets are an essential element of cities, and their design has a profound impact on their functionality to the movement of people and their well-being. This paper investigates preferences for and economic values of several street design characteristics, encompassing greenspaces (ground vegetation, trees, flowers), and walking and cycling infrastructure. A discrete choice experiment on a single case study street in Taipei, Taiwan, has revealed positive preferences for ground vegetation (and a willingness to pay—WTP—between $2.8 and $4 per year for a 1% increase in coverage), separated cycling infrastructure (with a WTP between $60 and $100 for cycleways separated from traffic), pedestrian access to road islands (WTP of $55), and the (reduced) amount of space dedicated to motor vehicles (WTP of $29 to avoid any increase). Flowers were also deemed important, but a mixed picture was obtained with respect to preference for street trees. The analysis is exploratory, on a relatively small sample of street users, but contributes to the literature on the importance of urban vegetation and walking and cycling infrastructure when designing streets and be used to draw lessons for other similarly dense urban areas in the country and wider region.