One-Kilometer Walking Limit during COVID-19: Evaluating Accessibility to Residential Public Open Spaces in a Major Saudi City
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for inviting me to review this manuscript. This paper investigates the impacts of the one km walking limit during Covid-19. In general, this is an interesting paper but it has to be improved in the following ways:
Comments:
1. In lines 72-74 you state that “[t]his study investigates whether the regulated walking distance during the COVID-19 lockdown was an appropriate strategy that fosters social sustainability, which priorities equal access for residents to reach POS and to perform physical activities in order to sustain their well-being.” This is simply wrong. Because based on your methodology, and results, it is not possible to know whether the lockdown can provide equal access to POS and it is not possible to know whether people can actually conduct physical activities based on spatial accessibility. You could simply revise it as “this study investigates to what extent the 1km walking limit during the pandemic may influence residents’ accessibility of POS”. You don’t need to emphasise the importance of POS regarding physical activity participation and physical and mental wellbeing again here.
2. I think the first two sections in the literature review section (POS’ size, quality, acceptable walking distance, block size, and walking) are overlapping please reorganise them as one section and make it shorter.
3. I think what is lacking in the literature review section is a review of previous studies on the impact of Covid-19 on accessibility. You have mentioned some in the introduction section but they can be expanded in the literature review section. This is way more important than the block size.
4. Fig.3 is a bit confusing: to me, the right one should be built POS as well because it seems to be a parking area. As far as I know, the impermeable layer is usually considered to be the built environment, therefore in this case, cement parking lots should definitely be considered as built public spaces. So, I think it is important to clarify in your paper, what criteria this clustering (built/unbuilt) is based on.
5. Fig.4 methodological framework is not necessary. Please consider deleting it.
6. Table 2 and Table 3, as well as the first two paragraphs which describe the contents of the two tables, are not part of your results, they should be in the data section.
7. You should discuss the limitation of using spatial accessibility for equity implications. You could copy and paste the following directly but it is encouraged to say something more.
“For subjective wellbeing and social equity, it is more important to examine how people perceive their accessibility (Lättman et al., 2016). Lättman et al. (2018) further, suggest that perceived accessibility may be conflicting with objectively measured accessibility. In Liu et al. (2021, 2022b)’s analysis of accessibility during the Covid-10 outbreak, they found that, on the one hand, social activities (which POS offers) could be accessed via online participation, on the other hand, physical activities (such as walking) can be conducted within the neighbourhood without necessarily visiting POS.”
8. I think it is also important to add some discussion about the type of neighbourhood (this is also a limitation of this study but you could put it as either a discussion or limitation because your focus on the design of the built environment is clear).
“The current manuscript focuses on the physical attributes of neighbourhoods, such as total population, block size, length, and width. They are useful to measure the design of the built environment. However, the socioeconomic features of these neighbourhoods are missing. Neighbourhoods of disadvantaged populations suffered from more severe accessibility problems (e.g., Ioane et al., 2021; Mullachery et al., 2022; Siu, 2021). For example, Liu et al. (2022a) found that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, discriminated-against migrants have had insufficient access to social activities and neighbourhood POS because of fear. Likewise, Ma et al. (2022) revealed that Asians were less likely to increase walking than White people due to racism during the Covid-19”
Small issues:
1. “Accessibility spatial analysis” sounds weird, maybe try “measuring spatial accessibility”.
2. It is OK to say “access to” or “accessibility of”, not “accessibility to”
Reference
Lättman, K., Olsson, L. E., & Friman, M. (2016). Development and test of the perceived accessibility scale (PAC) in public transport. Journal of Transport Geography, 54, 257-263.
Lättman, K., Olsson, L. E., & Friman, M. (2018). A new approach to accessibility–Examining perceived accessibility in contrast to objectively measured accessibility in daily travel. Research in Transportation Economics, 69, 501-511.
Liu, Q., An, Z., Liu, Y., Ying, W., & Zhao, P. (2021). Smartphone-based services, perceived accessibility, and transport inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-lagged panel study. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 97, 102941.
Liu, Q., Liu, Z., Kang, T., Zhu, L., & Zhao, P. (2022a). Transport inequities through the lens of environmental racism: rural-urban migrants under Covid-19. Transport policy, 122, 26-38.
Siu, J. Y. M. (2021). Health inequality experienced by the socially disadvantaged populations during the outbreak of COVID‐19 in Hong Kong: An interaction with social inequality. Health & social care in the community, 29(5), 1522-1529.
Author Response
We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful comments. We have followed your instructions and addressed all the comments (one-by-one). Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is one of many addressing the importance of green open spaces accessibility for urban residents during the COVID outbreak and the associated movement restrictions. Its aim is to assess the availability of POS within a 1 kilometre walking distance for the residents of surveyed districts in Jeddah city (block size, connectivity of the street network, POS quantity and distribution were taken into account)
The aim, overall concept of the article and the research method adopted does not cause me any doubts, although I do not have enough expertise to evaluate the assumptions made and the way the calculation was carried out. In my review, however, I want to address a few points, namely:
1) Built and unbuilt POS: this requires a broader explanation. From the text of the article and included photo, I understood that built POS means local park. However, I am not sure what unbuilt POS means. Are they “wild” parking lots, as the photo shows, or sometimes also areas covered with vegetation, however unbuilt? In such a situation, they could be considered as informal parks.
2) The authors in their introduction emphasize the importance of physical activity for the health of the inhabitants. However, they do not refer to the possibility of practicing these activities in the analysed POS. And, in particular, they do not refer to the provisions of POS area per person and the associated number of potential users. At a time of movement restrictions, the number of POS users might be a serious problem - if there are too many of them, the sites will become dangerous as places of potential infection.
3) I would suggest authors to consider the way the conclusions are formulated. They should relate directly to the purpose of the research, not to the article's contribution to the literature. In addition, there should be a reference to the hypothesis cited in the introduction.
4) I highly appreciate that the authors have noted two limitations of their research, which significantly affect the conclusions they formulate: the lack of analysis regarding the quality of street design and pedestrians facilities and, most importantly, the lack of reference to studies of the quality of the POS themselves and their equipment.
Author Response
We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful comments. We have followed your instructions and addressed all the comments (one-by-one). Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In my experience this is a novel study that takes into consideration how to view population health holistically and from a public health perspective during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The research project provide evidence about the factors that make easier or more accessible the parks on the vicinity for recreation and exercise during a social distancing mandate. These results are important for future urban planning in Saudi and many other similar cities. And provides a model for a healthy community in case another pandemic or similar event affect any community.
The project was very well presented and it was very interesting to learn how to use a very simple method to solve a very complex and unexpected calamity.
Author Response
We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful comments. We have followed your instructions and addressed all the comments (one-by-one). Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for revising. The quality of this paper has been considerably improved. I think it is now publishable.
