Browsing by Subject "Built environment"

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Analysis of the effect of multi-level urban form on bikeshare demand: Evidence from seven large metropolitan areas in the United States
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2020) Nasri, Arefeh; Younes, Hannah; Zhang, Lei
Bikeshare programs in their current form have been in place for several years in many cities across the United States. Encouraging people to use bikeshare for their daily routine travel has numerous social, economic, environmental, and health benefits. Therefore, it is important to understand factors influencing bikeshare use in different urban areas to improve the system and encourage more use. This paper investigates how the built environment at both local and regional scales influences bikeshare use in seven large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The study areas include Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco, San Jose, and Washington, D.C., and the data consists of about 12 million bike trips from approximately 2,000 stations over a one-year period. In addition to linear regression models built for each individual city for comparison purposes, a multi-level mixed effect regression model is built to predict the number of trips originated from each station with respect to the local and regional built environment pattern. The results are consistent with previous research on the effect of land use at the local level on bikeshare demand and show that residential density, regional diversity, pedestrian-oriented road network density, and job accessibility via transit all have a significant positive effect on bikeshare demand. At the regional level, results suggest that the overall level of mixed-use development and overall bike-friendliness in the region (i.e., exclusive bike routes, right-of-way, and bike facilities) and higher congestion level in the region are significant factors influencing bikeshare activities and demand. Models developed in this study could be applied to other communities that are seeking to improve and/or expand their bikeshare systems, as well as cities planning to launch new bikeshare programs.
Analyzing spatiotemporal congestion pattern on urban roads based on taxi GPS data
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Zhang, Kaisheng; Sun, Daniel (Jian); Shen, Suwan; Zhu, Yi
With the development of in-vehicle data collection devices, GPS trajectory has become a priority source to identify traffic congestion and understand the operational states of road network in recent years. This study aims to investigate the relationship between traffic congestion and built environment, including traffic related factors and land use. Fuzzy C-means clustering was used to conduct an exhaustive study on 24-hour congestion pattern of road segments in urban area, so that the spatial autoregressive moving average model (SARMA) was introduced to analyze the output from the clustering analysis to establish the relationship between built environment and the 24-hour congestion pattern. The clustering result classified the road segments into four congestion levels, while the regression explained 12 traffic-related factors and land use factors’ impact on road congestion pattern. The continuous congestion was found to mainly occur in the city center, and the factors, such as road type, bus station in the vicinity, ramp nearby, commercial land use and so on have large impact on congestion formation. The Fuzzy C-means clustering was proposed to be combined with quantitative spatial regression, and the overall evaluation process will assist to assess the spatial-temporal levels of service of traffic from the congestion perspective.
Assessing built environment walkability using activity-space summary measures
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2016) Tribby, Calvin P.; Miller, Harvey J.; Brown, Barbara B.; Werner, Carol M.; Smith, Ken R.
There is increasing emphasis on active transportation, such as walking, in transportation planning as a sustainable form of mobility and in public health as a means of achieving recommended physical activity and better health outcomes. A research focus is the influence of the built environment on walking, with the ultimate goal of identifying environmental modifications that invite more walking. A key issue is determining the spatial units for walkability measures so that they reflect potential walking behavior. This paper develops methods for assessing walkability within individual activity spaces: the geographic region accessible to an individual during a given walking trip. Based on objective walkability measures of the street blocks, we use three summary measures for walkability within activity spaces: i) the average walkability score across block segments, ii) the standard deviation, and iii) the network autocorrelation. We assess the method using data from an empirical study of built environment walkability and walking behavior in Salt Lake City, Utah. We visualize these activity-space summary measures to compare walkability among individuals’ trips within their neighborhoods. We also compare summary measures for activity spaces versus Census block groups, with the result that they agree less than half of the time.
Association of perceived environment walkability with purposive and discursive walking for urban design strategies
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Hsieh, Hsu-Sheng; Chuang, Min-Ta
The relationship between the built environment and walking behavior has been explored extensively. However, little research has been done to either differentiate between walking for transport and walking as activity or that applies urban design tools to walkability improvement based on environment-walking associations. Therefore, this study constructed perceived environment walkability factors to replace unidentified physical environments that varied among individuals and examined their associations with walking to a destination (purposive walking) and walking as activity (discursive walking), using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results suggest that residential density, land-use mix diversity, and pedestrian/traffic safety were associated with purposive walking while aesthetics and crime safety were associated with discursive walking. Land-use mix access and street connectivity were common correlates of both walking patterns. This study also explored how to apply urban design tools, including land-use plans, zoning control, and urban design guidelines, to shape a walkable environment based on the environment-walking associations.
A bikeshare station area typology to forecast the station-level ridership of system expansion
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2019) Gehrke, Steven R.; Welch, Timothy F.
The continuous introduction and expansion of docked bikeshare systems with publicly available origin-destination data have opened exciting avenues for bikeshare research. In response, a flux of recent studies has examined the sociodemographic determinants and safety or natural environment deterrents of system ridership. An increasing abundance of disaggregate spatial data has also spurred recent calls for research aimed at extending the utility of these contextual data to model bikeshare demand and trip patterns. As planners and operators seek to expand bikeshare services into underserved areas, a need exists to provide a data-driven understanding of the spatial dynamics of bikeshare use. This study of the Washington, DC, metro region's Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) program answers this call by performing a latent class cluster analysis to identify five bikeshare station area types based on variation in a set of land development pattern, urban design, and transportation infrastructure features. This typology is integrated into a planning application exploring the potential for system expansion into nearby jurisdictions and forecasting the associated trip-making potential between existing and proposed station locations.
Built environment and car driving distance in a small city context
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Wolday, Fitwi
This 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.
Built environment and travel behavior: Validation and application of a continuous-treatment propensity score stratification method
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Parady, Giancarlos Troncoso; Takami, Kiyoshi; Harata, Noboru
This article discusses the validation and implementation of a propensity score approach with continuous treatment to test the existence of a causal relationship between the built environment and travel behavior using cross-sectional data. The implemented methodology differs from previous applications in the planning literature in that it relaxes the binary treatment assumption, which polarizes the built environment into two extremes (e.g., urban vs suburban). The effectiveness of the proposed methodology in reducing bias was validated via Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed approach was shown to reduce self-selection bias against Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression in all but extreme levels of non-linearity. Empirical results suggest that an increase in urbanization has a negative effect on home-based maintenance car trip frequencies, and conversely, a positive effect on home-based maintenance non-motorized trip frequencies. Result estimates suggest the existence of a causal mode substitution mechanism between car and non-motorized modes given increases in the urbanization level at residential locations, thus providing some empirical support to the arguments put forth by compact city advocates.
Built environment correlates of walking for transportation: Differences between commuting and non-commuting trips
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Liu, Jixiang; Zhou, Jiangping; Xiao, Longzhu
As a sustainable mode of travel, walking for transportation has multiple environmental, social, and health-related benefits. In existing studies, however, such walking has rarely been differentiated between commuting and non-commuting trips. Using multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial regression and multilevel Tobit regression models, this study empirically examines the frequency and duration of commuting and non-commuting walking and their correlates in Xiamen, China. It finds that (1) non-commuting walking, on average, has a higher frequency and longer duration than commuting walking; (2) most socio-demographic variables are significant predictors, and age, occupation, and family size have opposite-direction effects on commuting and non-commuting walking; and (3) different sets of built environment variables are correlated with commuting and non-commuting walking, and the built environment collectively influences the latter more significantly than the former. The findings provide useful references for customized interventions concerning promoting commuting and non-commuting walking.
Built environment determinants of bicycle volume: A longitudinal analysis
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Chen, Peng; Zhou, Jiangping; Sun, Feiyang
This study examines determinants of bicycle volume in the built environment with a five-year bicycle count dataset from Seattle, Washington. A generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is used to capture the bicycle volume change over time while controlling for temporal autocorrelations. The GLMM assumes that bicycle count follows a Poisson distribution. The model results show that (1) the variables of non-winter seasons, peak hours, and weekends are positively associated with the increase of bicycle counts over time; (2) bicycle counts are fewer in steep areas; (3) bicycle counts are greater in zones with more mixed land use, a higher percentage of water bodies, or a greater percentage of workplaces; (4) the increment of bicycle infrastructure is positively associated with the increase of bicycle volume; and (5) bicycling is more popular in neighborhoods with a greater percentage of whites and younger adults. It concludes that areas with a smaller slope variation, a higher employment density, and a shorter distance to water bodies encourage bicycling. This conclusion suggests that to best boost bicycling, decision-makers should consider building more bicycle facilities in flat areas and integrating the facilities with employment densification and open-space creation and planning.
Capturing the built environment-travel interaction for strategic planning: Development of a multimodal travel module for the Regional Strategic Planning Model (RSPM)
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Wang, Liming; Gregor, Brian; Yang, Huajie; Weidner, Tara; Knudson, Anthony
Integrated land use and transportation models have evolved along a spectrum from simple sketch planning models to complex microsimulation models. While each has its niche, they are largely unable to balance the flexibility and realism of microsimulation and the speed and interactivity of simple models. The Regional Strategic Planning Model (RSPM) aims to fill this gap by taking a microsimulation approach while making other simplifications in order to model first-order effects quickly. It enables planners to consider the robustness of prospective policies in the face of future uncertainties by accepting a broad range of inputs and allowing rapid simulations of many scenarios. This paper introduces the RSPM and shows how new land use and multimodal transportation sensitivities have been incorporated through the conversion to the new VisionEval open-source framework. Land use and transportation interactions in the RSPM are reviewed, and the development of a new multimodal travel demand module with improved land use sensitivities is highlighted. The use of a unique nationwide dataset combining the 2009 NHTS, EPA’s Smart Location Database, and metropolitan transit and roadway data is explained. The paper concludes with the results of validation and sensitivity tests, and a discussion of future work.
Car dependency beyond land use: Can a standardized built environment indicator predict car use?
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022) Van Eenoo, Eva; Fransen, Koos; Boussauw, Kobe
In June 2019, the government of the Flemish Region (Belgium) launched the “mobility score,” a standardized built environment indicator that informs citizens in Flanders about the walking or cycling accessibility from their dwelling to a range of basic amenities and public transport stops. The development of the mobility score was developed to be a tool to raise awareness of the environmental impact of travel. Against this backdrop, this paper assesses the extent to which the mobility score can predict car use and aims to contribute to the line of research that studies travel patterns in relation to accessibility, spatial context, and travel mode choice. Based on the data from the Flemish Travel Behavior Survey, we analyze the effect of the interaction between the built environment, frequency of car use and vehicle kilometers traveled. Our findings illustrate that frequent and intensive car use is not an exclusive feature of suburban and rural residents in Flanders, or of those who travel long distances. The outcomes show that the mobility score can predict the frequency of car travel but only in the inner city. As for other areas, travel behavior shows little variance among respondents. The presence of a company car in a household is a much stronger predictor of vehicle kilometers traveled than any other variable, including the built environment. Travel behavior turns toward car use once a household acquires a car, almost regardless of the type of neighborhoods where respondents live. In Flanders, policy has so far been directed more toward curbing car use than discouraging car ownership. Our findings suggest that it could be more effective to aim for the latter, as this prevents the development of a cycle of car-oriented behavior in the first place.
Catalysts and magnets: built environment effects on bicycle commuting
(2013-09) Schoner, Jessica Elizabeth
What effects do bicycle infrastructure and the built environment have on people's decisions to commute by bicycle? While many studies have considered this question, commonly employed methodologies fail to address the unique statistical challenge of modeling such a low mode share. Additionally, self selection effects that are not adequately accounted for may lead to overestimation of built environment impacts. This study addresses these two key issues by using a zero-inflated negative binomial model to jointly estimate participation in and frequency of commuting by bicycle, controlling for demographics, residential preferences, and travel attitudes. The findings suggest a strong self selection effect and modest contributions of bicycle accessibility: that bicycle lanes act as ``magnets" to attract bicyclists to a neighborhood, rather than being the ``catalyst" that encourages non-bikers to shift modes. The results have implications for planners and policymakers attempting to increase bicycling mode share via the strategic infrastructure development.
Children and youth transport in different urban morphological types
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2016) Sarjala, Satu; Broberg, Anna; Hynynen, Ari
As demonstrated in many earlier studies, the qualities of physical environment have great impacts on physical activity (PA) behavior. However, studying individual built-environment variables often produces contradictory effects between studies. To overcome this, we composed multivariate environment types using principal component analysis that takes notice of the inter-correlations between physical-environment variables. To get a realistic view of the places children and adolescents visit in their daily life, we used mapping methodology in which children themselves deﬁned their important places. Based on 16 built-environment variables, six built-environment types were composed around these places. We found that walking and cycling were most prominent in residential environments and least common in mixed-use business districts. Areas with big commercial buildings as well as green environments had the highest proportions of car use. Most places, in general, were visited with friends, but most typically areas with big commercial buildings and mixed-use business districts were reached in the company of friends. Relatively many places were visited alone in residential areas.
Complete streets state laws & provisions: An analysis of legislative content and the state policy landscape, 1972–2018
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2019) Porter, Jamila M.; Bryan, Shenée J.; Lee, Joel M.; Corso, Phaedra S.; Davis, Marsha; Rathbun, Stephen L.
Across the U.S., states have adopted Complete Streets legislative statutes—state laws that direct transportation agencies to routinely design and operate roadways to provide safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and public transit users. To date, there has not been a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the content and provisions of these laws. In this study, Complete Streets state statutes were identified using legal research databases. Using established legal mapping methods, a qualitative analysis was conducted of state laws that were effective through December 2018. A codebook and open-source data set were developed to support the public use of the data. Eighteen states and Washington, DC, have adopted Complete Streets legislative statutes. A total of 21 have been adopted, with 76% (n=16) of laws adopted since 2007. While the laws vary in content, detail, and specificity, several common provisions were identified across statutes. Complete Streets legislative statutes may be essential to ensure that road networks throughout states are safe, connected, and accessible for all users. This study provides key insights into the legislative landscape of Complete Streets state laws and makes available a new data set that can support future evaluations of these laws.
Developing vehicular and non-vehicular trip generation models for mid-rise residential buildings in Kelowna, British Columbia: Assessing the impact of built environment, land use, and neighborhood characteristics
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Orvin, Muntahith Mehadil; Ahmed, Sheikh Daryus; Fatmi, Mahmudur Rahman; Lovegrove, Gordon
This study develops vehicular and non-vehicular trip generation models for mid-rise, multi-family residential developments. A comparative analysis of observed and Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) trip rates suggests that ITE rates consistently overestimate. A latent segmentation-based negative binomial (LSNB) model is developed to improve the methodology for estimating vehicular and non-vehicular trips. One of the key features of an LSNB model is to capture heterogeneity. Segment allocation results for the vehicular and non-vehicular models suggest that one segment includes suburban developments, whereas the other includes urban developments. Results reveal that a higher number of dwelling units is likely to be associated with increased vehicle trips. For non-vehicular trips, a higher number of dwelling units and increased recreational opportunities are more likely to increase trip generation. The LSNB model confirms the existence of significant heterogeneity. For instance, higher land-use mix has a higher probability to deter vehicular trips in urban areas, whereas trips in the suburban areas are likely to continue increasing. Higher density of bus routes and sidewalks are likely to be associated with increased non-vehicular trips in urban areas, yet such trips are likely to decrease in suburban areas. An interesting finding is that higher bikeability in suburban areas is more likely to increase non-vehicular trips. The findings of this study are expected to assist engineers and planners to predict vehicular and non-vehicular trips with higher accuracy.
Different destination, different commuting pattern? Analyzing the influence of the campus location on commuting
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2018) Vale, David S.; Pereira, Mauro; Viana, Claudia M.
There is a vast literature on the relationship between built environment and travel, emphasizing the importance of built environment as a determinant of travel. However, the majority of studies focuses on the characteristics of origins and neglects the influence that the destination might have on travel, despite the already demonstrated importance of destinations to explain travel. In this paper, we test the relationship between residential and workplace built environment and the commuting pattern of staff and students of the University of Lisbon, a multi-campus university. Data was obtained through a dedicated travel survey, containing 1474 georeferenced individuals. Chi-square analyses were developed to analyze differences between staff and students and between different campuses. A logistic regression model was developed to explain car commuting, controlling for socio-demographic data. Two different models were developed for students and staff. Our results show the built environment and associated multimodal accessibility of the campuses are important explanatory variables of commuting. Free parking at the campus is crucial for car commuting, especially for students. These results emphasize the importance of measuring destinations as explanatory variables and promoting good urban integration of the campus in the city, increasing its multimodal accessibility.
Do characteristics of walkable environments support bicycling? Toward a definition of bicycle-supported development
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2016) Muhs, Christopher D.; Clifton, Kelly J.
Does walkability equate with bikeability? Through a comprehensive review of studies of the built environment and bicycling, including mode choice, route choice, safety, and urban design literature, this paper addresses this question. Previous work has raised the issue that the two modes are functionally different, despite them often being combined into a nonmotorized category, and has highlighted research challenges. Existing studies of bikeability have largely focused on infrastructure. This paper contributes to the literature on bicycling and the built environment by providing a thorough review of past research with a focus on the relationships between land use, urban form, and bicycling. Highly walkable and highly bikeable environments are quite different, and there is little consistency in the built-environment attributes associated with cycling across studies. We postulate that this inconsistency is due in part to a disconnect between theory and methods of measuring the environment for cycling along with data limitations, including sample sizes and our understanding being based mainly on cross-sectional data. Many research opportunities are present for land-use planning policies now that planning for cycling is a top priority for cities and regions across the world.
Do children walk where they bike? Exploring built environment correlates of children's walking and bicycling
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2016) Moran, Mike; Plaut, Pnina; Baron-Epel, Orna
Previous studies examined environmental correlates of children's physical activity. While most of these studies used aggregated physical activity measures (i.e., overall physical activity, active travel), little is known about the contribution of specific environmental attributes to specific types of physical activity. This study examined associations between GIS-based environmental measures and children’s self-reported walking and bicycling. The study area included “traditional neighborhoods” (N=4), characterized by high-density, land-use mix and grid-street network, and "suburban neighborhoods" (N=3), characterized by low-density, land-use segregation, and cul-de-sac streets. Data on children’s physical activity and psychosocial and socio-demographic factors were obtained through a school survey (of fifth and sixth graders) (N=573). Urban-form measures (intersection density, residential density, and built coverage) were significantly positively associated with walking and negatively associated with bicycling. These associations remained significant after controlling for social, intra- and inter-personal factors. These findings suggest that certain environments may encourage children’s walking and hinder their bicycling at the same time (and vice versa) and therefore raise the need for a more clear distinction between child-related walkability and bikeablilty.
Do people walk more in transit-accessible places?
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2020) Choi, Yunkyung; Guhathakurta, Subhrajit
While transit-oriented developments (TODs) are generally believed to promote the use of sustainable travel modes, the degree to which various components of TODs influence travel behavior is still debatable. This paper revisits Chatman’s (2013) question: “Does TOD need the T?” by addressing the effect of rail transit access in influencing walking behavior in TOD areas. In particular, we compare TODs to other similar areas, with rail transit access being the key variable, and examine whether people are more likely to walk in TODs for purposes other than transit use. This hypothesis is tested using traffic analysis zones (TAZs) in the Atlanta Metropolitan Region. First, we identify TAZs within rail catchment areas and use propensity scores to match them with other TAZs with similar built environmental characteristics except for rail transit access. We then conduct a statistical analysis comparing walking trips for both commuting and non-commuting trips in these two TAZ groups. Our results confirm that the likelihood of walking trips increases in transit-accessible TAZs compared to other similar areas without transit. Therefore, states and localities can maximize the benefits of pedestrian-friendly built environments by making rail transit access an important part of their planning and design.
Do people’s perceptions of neighborhood bikeability match “reality”?
(Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2017) Ma, Liang; Dill, Jennifer
Do people perceive the built environment the same as we objectively measure it? If not, what are the relative roles of the objective versus the perceived environment on bicycling behavior? This study, based on data from Portland Oregon, explored the match or mismatch between the objective and perceived bicycling environment, and how it affects people’s bicycling behavior. The descriptive analysis indicated a fair agreement between perceived and objective measures. Older adults, women having children, less-educated and lower-income persons, and those who bicycle less tended to perceive their high-bikeable environment (measured objectively) as low-bikeable. In addition to the socio-demographics, this study also found social environment can play a role in the relationship between objective and perceived environment. Finally, results of this study indicated that actual and perceived built-environment both are associated with the bicycling behavior, particularly for utilitarian bicycling. For recreational bicycling, the objective environment attributes measured in this study are not significant factors, while the perceptions do matter.

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