Browsing by Author "Wolday, Fitwi"
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Item Built environment and car driving distance in a small city context(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Wolday, FitwiThis article focuses on the effect of built-environment factors on travel behavior in the context of small cities. Urban size and spatial context are central to travel behavior analysis because of the spatiotemporal nature of transportation. Different urban structural attributes exert travel behavioral influences at different spatial scales (local vs. regional) and urban sizes. Due to this inherent geographic dimension in travel studies, findings from larger urban areas may not be transferable to small cities. Despite this, however, small cities remain scantily represented in the literature. Using multivariate analysis on survey data from three small cities in Norway, this paper finds that the built-environment effects on travel behavior are highly influenced by regional characteristics and the city’s center structure (poly-centered vs. single centered). Residential proximity to the city center leads to reduced car driving distance through its distance-minimizing effect to concentrations of facilities for local travel. At the regional scale, proximity to the city center influences car driving distance via the higher likelihood among centrally located commuters of choosing transit as their commute mode.Item Workplace location, polycentricism, and car commuting(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2019) Wolday, Fitwi; Tønnesen, Anders; Næss, PetterAlthough significant strides have been made regarding the relationship between urban structure and travel, some doubt appears to be lingering concerning the impacts of polycentric urban development. For example, the debate on whether a polycentric or monocentric workplace location pattern is favorable for reducing negative environmental effects from transportation has not been entirely settled. This study intends to contribute to clearing up some of the misconceptions by focusing on the implications of spatial distribution of jobs on commuting patterns among employees within the Oslo metropolitan area. Results show a strong tendency for a higher share of car commuting among employees working in suburban workplaces. This pattern persists also for suburban workplaces located close to suburban transit nodes. The share of transit commuters shows the opposite pattern. Commuting distances also tend to increase the farther from the city center the workplace is located. These conclusions are based on cross-sectional and quasi-longitudinal survey data as well as semi-structured in-depth interviews of workers, including several interviewees who had changed their workplace locations. To our knowledge, this is the first mixed-methods study on the influence of workplace location on commuting behavior. The results raise doubt about the appropriateness of polycentric intra-metropolitan workplace development as a strategy for sustainable mobility.