{
  "geography": "Downtown Victoria (counters at fixed locations)",
  "scope": "city",
  "period": "Q2 2026 (April to June)",
  "period_start": "2026-04-01",
  "period_end": "2026-06-28",
  "refresh_frequency": "Quarterly (City economic dashboard)",
  "id": "downtown-pedestrian-counts",
  "category": "Downtown",
  "title": "People walking past downtown counters",
  "levels": [
    "Visitors, workers and residents",
    "Municipal (downtown programs)"
  ],
  "plain_question": "How many people walked past the downtown counters in the quarter, compared with the same quarter a year earlier?",
  "value": 1636533,
  "display_value": "1.64M",
  "unit": "counted passes, Q2 2026",
  "comparison": {
    "previous_period": "Q2 2025",
    "previous_value": 1824657,
    "change_percent": -11.5
  },
  "since_text": "1,824,657 in Q2 2025; the City reports -11.5%",
  "trend": "worsening",
  "direction_good": "up",
  "trend_basis": "1,636,533 counted passes in Q2 2026, compared with 1,824,657 in Q2 2025. The City reports this as down 11.5%; the two totals as printed give -10.3%. The status uses the City's published totals.",
  "right_direction": "A higher number means more people walked past the downtown counters.",
  "caveats": [
    "Counts come from counters at fixed downtown locations; the same person can be counted more than once, and the totals are not all pedestrian activity downtown.",
    "The City of Victoria republishes these counts in its Economic Dashboard and credits them to the Downtown Victoria Business Association (the charts read “SOURCE: DVBA”). The association is not a public authority. No public body publishes its own downtown pedestrian counts, so this source is used, with this note.",
    "The City notes that counters out of service in either year were excluded from both years to keep the comparison like-for-like.",
    "The percentage printed by the City (-11.5%) differs from the change between the two printed totals (-10.3%); the report does not explain the difference.",
    "Only one quarter and the same quarter a year earlier are read from each report."
  ],
  "series": [
    {
      "period": "Q2 2025",
      "value": 1824657
    },
    {
      "period": "Q2 2026",
      "value": 1636533
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "dataset_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "download_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "publisher_page": "https://www.victoria.ca/building-business/economic-development",
    "page_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026#page=1",
    "page": 1,
    "locator": "City economic dashboard, Q2 2026, page 1 (pedestrians) and page 2 (chart)",
    "reads": "“1,636,533 pedestrians”, “down 11.5% from Q2 2025”"
  },
  "licence": {
    "name": "Public data, not under an open licence. Used with attribution.",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/legal-disclaimer",
    "open": false
  },
  "verified_text": [
    "1,636,533 Current 46 free concerts pedestrians",
    "down 11.5% from Q2 2025",
    "2025 (1,824,657) 200,000 2026 (1,636,533)"
  ],
  "data_published": "2026-08-21",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-11-12T04:17:37Z",
  "attribution": "Source: City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026. Public document, used with attribution; not endorsed by the publisher.",
  "licence_type": "public",
  "source_tier": 1,
  "measure_kind": "outcome",
  "better_measure": {
    "what": "Downtown storefront vacancy",
    "who_could_publish": "City of Victoria",
    "status": "Not published as data. Not asked for yet."
  },
  "status_rule": {
    "rule": "One rule for every measure: a change smaller than 5% of the earlier value, or smaller than the agency's own margin of error, is “About the same”; no change is calculated across a marked break in a series; homelessness estimates, prices, staffing and comparison pages are shown for context without a label.",
    "reason": "The change is 11.5% of the earlier value, at or above the 5% threshold.",
    "threshold_percent": 5.0
  },
  "changes": {
    "year": {
      "period": "Q2 2025",
      "value": 1824657,
      "text": "vs Q2 2025: -11.5%"
    },
    "five_year": null
  },
  "direction": {
    "type": "outcome",
    "rule": "Outcome measures read Better, Worse or About the same; published government targets read Ahead of, On or Behind target; value-judgement measures read Rising, Falling or Steady in a neutral colour. A change smaller than the agency's own margin of error, or otherwise smaller than 5% of the earlier value, is About the same (or Steady). No change is calculated across a marked break in a series.",
    "key": "worse",
    "label": "Worse",
    "arrow": "▼",
    "rel": -11.5,
    "delta": null,
    "vs": "Q2 2025",
    "cur": "Q2 2026 (April to June)",
    "why": "The change is 11.5% of the earlier value, at or above the 5% threshold.",
    "change": "12%",
    "one_year": "−11.5%",
    "long_why": "The series starts in Q2 2025, so there is no reading longer than one year yet."
  },
  "data_published_basis": "file dated",
  "benchmark": {
    "rung": 4,
    "rung_name": "Context measure: no target expected",
    "as_of": "2026-11-12",
    "items": [
      {
        "kind": "context",
        "label": "Context measure: no target expected",
        "area": null,
        "source": null,
        "documents_checked": null,
        "text": "Context measure: no target expected. A count from sidewalk counters, shown as activity."
      }
    ],
    "drawn": [],
    "rule": "Highest rung found is shown; the site never sets a target. Methods, Targets."
  },
  "no_target_expected": "A count from sidewalk counters, shown as activity.",
  "benchmarks": [],
  "highest_rung": null,
  "decided_by": [
    {
      "body": "NONE",
      "name": "No government decides this directly",
      "note": "Visitors, shoppers and businesses decide where people go."
    },
    {
      "body": "COV",
      "name": "City of Victoria Council",
      "decides": "Regulates businesses by bylaw and manages the City’s streets.",
      "laws": [
        {
          "key": "cc8b",
          "label": "Community Charter, s. 8 (6)",
          "url": "https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/03026_02#section8"
        },
        {
          "key": "cc35",
          "label": "Community Charter, s. 35",
          "url": "https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/03026_03#section35"
        }
      ],
      "last": null,
      "next": null
    }
  ],
  "main_decision_maker": "No government decides this directly",
  "label_1y": {
    "key": "worse",
    "label": "Worse"
  },
  "label_long": null,
  "target_line": {
    "form": 7,
    "text": "No target expected",
    "target": null,
    "gap": null,
    "comparison": null,
    "applies_here": false,
    "note": "A count from sidewalk counters, shown as activity."
  }
}