Rice University Wiess School of Natural Sciences Houston Sustainability Indicators

Best Practices Section

Assessment Methods to Adapt

Use the EUP toolkit's reproducible methods to build Houston baselines before the tournament and repeat them after World Cup 2026.

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Measurement toolkit

Move from claims to before-and-after evidence

The EUP report is especially useful because it does not stop at themes. Each method identifies a hypothesis, main questions, indicators, limitations, implementation steps, and initial results. That structure can be adapted for Houston World Cup corridors, fan districts, transit access, and public-space installations.

The strongest model is mixed: map access quantitatively, walk the routes, count movement, and ask residents how the places feel. That combination keeps the playbook data-informed without losing everyday experience.

Back to Best Practices overview

Quantitative Methods

  • Use isochrone maps to show who can reach transit, health, food, education, nature, sport, fan-zone, and hospitality services within 5, 10, and 15 minutes.
  • Measure walking and biking time between event objects, transit hubs, corridors, bridges, hotels, schools, parks, and neighborhood centers.
  • Count mode share at key locations and intervals so changes in walking, cycling, transit, rideshare, freight, and car movement can be compared over time.

Qualitative Methods

  • Use resident and worker surveys to collect perceived safety, sidewalk quality, public-space comfort, and access barriers.
  • Conduct go-along interviews or field walks to document how routes feel for older adults, families, transit users, workers, and visitors.
  • Keep questions short and place surveys where people naturally wait, such as schools, transit stops, event queues, civic venues, and community hubs.
Isochrone methodMap travel-time access to services and compare before-and-after coverage.

Extracted text: The isochrone method maps 5-, 10-, and 15-minute walking or cycling access to services and facilities, asking whether residents have equal access and whether new Olympic objects extend that access.

Travel-time walksBenchmark actual movement times around Olympic objects and transit hubs.

Extracted text: The travel-time method benchmarks walking time between Olympic objects, nearby centers, and transit hubs to test whether new investments reduce landlockedness and support a 15-minute-city goal.

Mode-share countsCount how people move through specific places and repeat the counts after event investments.

Extracted text: The mode-share study counts how people move through key points at timed intervals, then compares the baseline with post-event conditions to see whether walking, cycling, transit, or car use changed.

Accessibility surveysUse resident interviews to complement mobility data with perceived safety, comfort, and access quality.

Extracted text: The accessibility survey and interview method treats inhabitants as key assessors, collecting mobility behaviors, routes, transportation modes, sidewalk quality, public transport quality, and feelings about walking.

Houston indicator structureThe HSI metrics table offers Houston variables that can be paired with EUP-style methods.

Extracted text: HSI metrics include race and ethnicity, education, graduation rate, income, poverty, housing-plus-transportation costs, parks access, food deserts, unemployment, jobs, transit, floodplain, density, and land-use mix.

Sources: Ecole d'Urbanisme de Paris, Assessing the Urban Impacts of the Olympic Objects: Final Report, 2024, pp. 10, 13-14, 17, 23-27; King, The 6th Houston Sustainability Indicators Report, 2016, pp. 17-20.