Abstract
This study examines the relationship between community-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics and roadway maintenance service in unincorporated King County. While traffic safety research has traditionally focused on individual behaviors and crash data, this research incorporates resident reported service requests as a community-driven indicator of infrastructure needs and safety concerns. Statistical and spatial analyses were conducted at the census block group level using five years of county data from 2019 to 2023, which included nearly 30,000 service requests and over 100,000 county work orders.A Poisson regression model was developed to evaluate the influence of median household income, median age, and population on service request rates. The results indicate that roadway exposure, measured by county road miles, is strongly associated with increased request rates. Additionally, median age was found to be a significant predictor, with older communities engaging with King County staff at higher levels than younger communities. Income effects were more complex, suggesting that higher-income communities may have greater expectations for roadway infrastructure quality, particularly among younger demographics.
Despite identifying meaningful relationships, model validation showed limited predictive accuracy, highlighting the challenges associated with modeling human-reported data. These findings suggest that service requests provide valuable supplemental insight into transportation system performance and community needs. Integrating this data into planning processes may improve the identification of underserved areas and support more responsive traffic safety strategies.