Shortest distance between a point and an intersection

[AmandaShane]

Hi, I'm a graduate student in public health and have run into a problem with my spatial analysis that I'm hoping for some input on (I'm a novice ArcGIS user).

Within a city, I'm trying to determine the optimal location to place a structural intervention. I have a dataset representing people (points that are geocoded) and I have a road network shape file that consists of all the roads within this city. In order to perform my basic optimization calculations, I need to know the distances between my people/points and every intersection within the defined city boundary.

I'm wondering how best to obtain these distances. I'm looking for the street network distance.

Any help or direction is much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[MelindaMorang]

Hi Amanda.  Do you have the Network Analyst extension?  If so, it sounds like what you want is the Location Allocation tool: http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//004700000050000000
The purpose of this tool is to optimize the placement of businesses or other facilities, and it uses street network distances.

To use Location Allocation, you will need a network dataset, which is a special format of street network.  You can create your own (which is not an easy task), purchase the StreetMap premium one from Esri, or use the one on your data & maps DVD that came with your ArcGIS installation materials.  Ask your sysadmin.

Good luck.