Devajyoti Deka

Role of Public Transportation as Job Access Mode Lessons from Survey of People with Disabilities in New Jersey

Transportation barriers are often the reason for the discrepancy in the employment rate between people with disabilities and others, yet little information about the transportation barriers and the needs of people with disabilities who are searching for employment is available. The primary objective of this paper is to share valuable information from a unique survey of people with disabilities who were actively searching for employment in New Jersey. The paper examines the role of public transportation in providing job access to people with disabilities and provides information and insights on the availability, use, needs, barriers, and perceptions of the survey respondents about different public transit modes. The paper also discusses the implications for agencies that provide transportation for people with human services needs. Research shows that despite the frequent use of public transportation by job-seeking people with disabilities, many of them are dissatisfied with public transportation. Although satisfaction with vehicle equipment compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act seems high, many individuals are dissatisfied with the level of transit service and environmental barriers between homes and transit stations and stops. It can be inferred from the results that a multitude of strategies will be needed to address the travel needs and barriers of job-seeking people with disabilities in the state. In addition to providing assistance with transportation for people with human services needs and providing insights to vocational rehabilitation counselors, the study will serve as a means for laying the framework for more rigorous research on the transportation needs and barriers of people with disabilities.

A Statewide Analysis of Bicycling in New Jersey

ABSTRACT A statewide survey of bicycling behavior was conducted for the State of New Jersey. Our primary objective was to analyze factors associated with bicycling behavior. Most people who bicycle in the state do so for recreational purposes, thus our analysis provides information primarily on recreational bicycling. We find from our logit and ordered probit models that the propensity to bicycle and the frequency of bicycling are driven primarily by demographic and socioeconomic factors. We also analyze various place-based factors and find that in general most have no statistical effect. Exceptions include areas with higher population density and areas with parks and playgrounds, both being associated with more bicycling. Results provide useful information for planners seeking to provide facilities that may increase the level of recreational bicycling, which is known to improve public health.

The Living, Moving and Travel Behaviour of the Growing American Solo: Implications for Cities:

Between 1930 and 2010 the share of single-person, or solo, households in the US increased from 6 per cent to almost 28 per cent, whereas the share of married-couple households decreased from 79 per cent to 49 per cent. Yet solo households have received little attention in urban planning and transport research. Given the significant increase of solo households in US cities, this study identifies the distinctive dwelling, moving and travel characteristics of the American solo households, and examines the reasons for their attraction to cities. It uses historical data from census Public Use Microdata Samples and recent national data from the American Housing Survey and the National Household Travel Survey. Descriptive statistics, basic statistical tests, binary logit models and Heckman sample selection models are used to examine various relationships. Some of the transport-related and environmental implications of the findings are discussed.

Benchmarking gentrification near commuter rail stations in New Jersey

Predictions in recent studies that an increasingly large number of households will locate near rail stations because of changing lifestyles and perceptions of younger generations should be a reason for concern for transportation planners as excessively high demand for housing near stations can displace disadvantaged populations. In New Jersey, where the statewide Transit Village programme was introduced in 1999 to promote transit-oriented developments (TOD), many communities with rail stations are currently inhabited by low-income and minority populations. While gentrification through TODs can have many environmental and economic benefits, caution is needed to ensure that it does not displace disadvantaged households. With this assertion, the study sets benchmarks for current population characteristics of the areas near commuter rail stations in New Jersey and compares changes of the characteristics between 1990 and 2013 by using the Geolytics Neighborhood Change Database. Specifically, it compares the socioeconomic characteristics of the areas near stations with the areas further both at the macro and the micro levels by focusing on race, ethnicity, income, rent and other key variables. The study uses analysis of variance and regression models to compare areas near stations with areas beyond. Although the regression models showed higher home value and greater increase in home value near stations than areas further, change in rent has been more stable. The analysis did not reveal significant undesirable changes in population characteristics in the areas near stations, especially for the variables on race and ethnicity.

The Evolution of School Siting and Its Implications for Active Transportation in New Jersey

The study examines historical changes in size and location of schools in New Jersey and their relevance to children’s walking and bicycling to school. It compares the characteristics of schools, students, and surrounding areas of schools established in different decades to identify the critical issues that affect active transportation to school in the state. The study shows that schools in the state have become larger and they are increasingly being located on state and county roads instead of local roads. Pedestrian safety for children seems to be a greater concern in the state than distance to school.

Does proximity to activity-inducing facilities explain lower rates of physical activity by low-income and minority populations?

As in the rest of the nation, low-income and minority populations in New Jersey have higher rates of obesity and lower rates of participation in physical activity. This study examined whether a lower level of geographic proximity to activity-inducing infrastructure and facilities, including bicycling routes and gymnasiums, could be a reason for lower rates of participation in physical activity for New Jersey minority populations. Results of past studies revealed that proximity to activity-inducing facilities was generally associated with greater participation in physical activity for the general population. Some study results showed that low-income and minority populations had a lower level of geographic proximity to such facilities. Other studies indicated that proximity to facilities might not have influenced their participation in physical activity to the same extent as the general population. This study made a statewide assessment of proximity to existing fitness facilities, existing bicycling facilities, and programmed bicycling and pedestrian projects in New Jersey. One-way analysis of variance was used to examine if proximity to activity-inducing facilities was lower for low-income and minority populations. Analysis was carried out at the census block group and municipal levels. The results provided no evidence that low-income and minority populations had a lower level of geographic proximity to activity-inducing facilities. The analysis also showed that programmed bicycling and pedestrian projects were favorably located for these populations. The study concluded that the lower rates of participation of low-income and minority populations in New Jersey were caused by behavioral factors rather than proximity to facilities.

Travel patterns, needs, and barriers of adults with autism spectrum disorder: report from a survey

Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has received a substantial amount of attention in other fields, very little appears in the transportation literature about people with ASD. Because the National Household Travel Survey and metropolitan travel surveys do not classify people with ASD as a separate category of persons with disabilities, very little information is available about their travel patterns, needs, or barriers. To bridge the existing information gap, this paper provides results from a recent survey that focused exclusively on adults with ASD in New Jersey to learn about their travel patterns, the importance of the various types of trips they make, and the barriers they encounter regarding the use of different transportation modes. The survey, distributed through various organizations throughout the state, was completed by or for 703 adults. Because the objective of the paper is to provide as much information as possible from the survey, no attempt has been made to compare the travel patterns, needs, and barriers of the survey respondents with those of the general population. However, other researchers can easily compare the survey results provided in this paper with data from other sources. Although the survey generated other valuable information, the most revealing information pertained to barriers to walking, driving, taking public transit, and even taking rides from others. The information collected through this research is being shared through outreach efforts with agencies that provide or fund transportation to persons with disabilities in New Jersey.

Relationship between Households' Housing and Transportation Expenditures: Examination from Lifestyle Perspective

Because of growing concern about the significant increase in American household transportation costs, federal agencies have endorsed the notion that it is not merely the affordability of housing alone that is important but the affordability of housing and transportation taken together. Most transportation studies have focused on the relationship between the costs of housing and commuting. Thus the relationship between household expenditures on housing and overall transportation has remained mostly unexamined. With the use of U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data, this study made an effort to bridge the gap in the existing knowledge base through an examination of this relationship. In the absence of theories about the relationship between the two types of expenditures, this study leaned heavily on a stream of literature on lifestyle choice, which was advanced to explain the absence of a trade-off between the costs of housing and commuting postulated by urban economic theorists. To account for endogeneity between household expenditures on housing and transportation, three-stage least-squares models were used with the two types of expenditures defined in dollar amounts and as shares of income. For the sake of comparison, a third model, which defined the two types of expenditures as shares of household total expenditures, was used. The relationship between the two types of expenditures varied depending on the definition used. In addition, the models showed the way in which dwelling type, building age, number of household automobiles, public transit use, and metropolitan area size affected transportation expenditure. The implications are discussed.

Exploration of the effect of violent crime on recreational and transportation walking by path and structural equation models

&NA; To examine how violent crime affects peoples recreational and transportation walking duration in daytime and after dark on a typical day, this study undertakes associative and causal analyses with geo‐referenced crime data, street‐audit data, and data collected through an intercept survey in a three‐municipality region of New Jersey that is predominantly inhabited by low‐income and minority populations. Survey data was collected from 1173 respondents at 87 intersections selected by stratified random sampling. Similar to many past studies using associative methods, correlation analysis and ordered logit models showed mostly counterintuitive results. However, sequential or causal models, including path and structural equation (SE) models, showed that recorded crime increases fear of crime and chances of victimization, which in turn decrease walking duration for both recreation and transportation. The study concludes that even if people walk more in high‐crime areas because of nearby destinations and lack of alternatives, crime may still have an adverse effect on walking, meaning that people in those neighborhoods would have walked even more if not for high crime. HighlightsRecorded violent crime adversely effects both recreational and transport walking.Violent crime has a more discernible effect on daytime recreational walking.Violent crime has a more discernible effect on transport walking after dark.Causal models provide more intuitive results than associative models.

What Do Planning Professionals, Police, and Pedestrians in General Think About Distracted Driving and Walking?

Issues that relate to distracted driving and walking are discussed by presenting results from a survey of planning professionals, police officers, and pedestrians in New Jersey. The pedestrian intercept survey was completed by 788 individuals, while the online surveys for planning professionals and police officers were completed by 209 and 156 individuals, respectively. The surveys primarily focused on the perceptions of seriousness, prevalence, and solutions to distracted driving and walking. One of the key findings from the surveys is that all three groups considered distracted driving and walking to be serious problems that were becoming increasingly more common over time. Of types of driving distractions, texting and talking on handheld phones were considered to be two of the most common and yet least safe driver distractions. All three groups perceived mandatory education for new drivers, stricter enforcement of existing laws, and more severe penalties for drivers involved in crashes as the most important solutions to distracted driving. Educating students by schools was considered to be the most important solution to distracted walking. While strong support was found for police checking phones of drivers involved in crashes, little support was found for police intervention to curb distracted walking. The study’s findings are being discussed through outreach with select agencies to develop and adopt strategies to address distracted driving and walking in New Jersey.