Elizabeth Shay

Drive or Walk? Utilitarian Trips Within a Neotraditional Neighborhood

An extensive body of literature has developed on the relationship between the physical environment and travel behavior. Although many studies have found that neotraditional neighborhood development supports nonautomobile travel by providing good street connectivity, pedestrian and cycling facilities, and internal destinations, questions remain about the travel behavior of individuals within such neighborhoods. This study uses travel diaries to examine utilitarian trip-making behavior within a neotraditional neighborhood and compares total trips with mode-specific (i.e., walk and drive) trips. Negative binomial regression is used to examine the effect of a set of independent variables, including personal and household characteristics, select attitudinal factors, and distance from residences to the commercial center. It is found that within the neotraditional neighborhood, walk trips drop off quickly with increasing distance to destinations, whereas drive trips increase. The analysis demonstrates the importance of short distances for within-neighborhood travel and the merit in considering trips separately for walk and drive modes to avoid obscuring important factors associated with trip making.

Household travel decision chains: residential environment, automobile ownership, trips and mode choice

ABSTRACT Planners and researchers increasingly are concerned with how residential environments relate to auto ownership and travel. We quantified accessibility and walkability, to examine relationships of trips and modes to auto ownership and residential location. We applied the results in travel demand modeling for various scenarios, including a recent forecast linking land use and demographic changes, travel behavior, emissions and air quality. We found that where the built environment rates high on such measures as density, connectivity, pedestrian and transit facilities, and other features of highly walkable and accessible areas, people own fewer vehicles but make more trips. Although such environments also are associated with greater likelihood of walking and attendant decreases in motorized modes, driving remains overwhelmingly dominant.

Automobiles, Trips, and Neighborhood Type: Comparing Environmental Measures

Transportation analysts have long recognized a role for the environment in travel behavior; techniques for incorporating the built environment into travel research remain in active development. This study uses multiple environmental representations to model automobile ownership and travel decisions with a single data set and model structure to test relationships already reported in the literature and to lay the foundation for extending this framework to additional travel modeling. Simple environmental measures, indices generated by factor analysis, and a neighborhood typology derived from cluster analysis of the factors, along with common household measures, are used to find the factors to provide information about travel that the clusters and direct measures do not. Automobile ownership and trips showed the expected relationships, with the former sensitive to sociodemographic factors and the latter sensitive also to the environment. Modes related differently to environmental factors; specifically, walk trips were strongly associated with accessibility and walkability, whereas drive trips were insensitive to these factors but were associated with other factors.

Collaborative School Planning and Active Schools: A Case Study of Lee County, Florida

To contribute to the understanding of the links between urban planning and school siting and, ultimately, the impact of both on physical activity, we conducted a case study of Lee County, Florida. Our study examined the extent of state-mandated collaboration between the Lee County School Board and Lee County government (e.g., the Lee County Department of Planning, the Office of Smart Growth, and the Department of Parks and Recreation). Specifically, we investigated planning processes under mandated coordination between the school board and the county and the impact of such coordination on the integration of land-use planning and school facility planning. By describing the process of mandated collaborative school planning in Florida, we illustrate the promise and pitfalls of such top-down legislation and offer insights to other state and local governments looking for ways to improve local planning and to increase physical activity among children.

Automobile Ownership and Use in Neotraditional and Conventional Neighborhoods

Although the commonly accepted link between automobile ownership and automobile use has inspired some municipalities to experiment with neighborhood design in an attempt to influence both automobile ownership and travel behavior, the underlying relationship between neighborhood design and automobile ownership is still unclear. Evidence suggests that automobile ownership is tightly linked to income and household size and is less responsive to urban design. This research uses data from a matched pair of neighborhoods-one conventional and one neotraditional-to consider the relationship between neighborhood design and automobile ownership and the relationship between these factors and automobile use. Statistically significant differences were found for automobile ownership in the two neighborhoods. In addition, there were clear differences in automobile use-residents of neotraditional developments made fewer automobile trips, traveled fewer miles in their vehicles, and spent less time driving. This has implic...

Toward Sustainable Transport: Conventional and Disruptive Approaches in the U.S. Context

ABSTRACT As a crosscutting element of human activity, transportation is an appropriate arena for pursuing sustainability. Conventional transportation in the U.S., based largely on private autos, is untenable in the long run for reasons of congestion, energy consumption, safety, and environmental and human health. To date, response to a growing sustainability movement has been largely incremental. Proactive tools focusing on environmental, economic and social impacts of transportation have the potential to disrupt the status quo, and provide an opening for sustainable practices. Focusing on surface passenger travel, this discussion paper considers four sectors in which transportation-relevant policies or programs are conceived and delivered, orders them roughly along a continuum from conventional to disruptive, and assesses their potential for moving the U.S. toward a more sustainable future. Questions are posed about conventional vs. disruptive, and incremental vs. large-scale, changes.

Intelligent Transportation Systems: What Do Publications and Patents Tell Us?

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have attracted much attention and have seen rapid growth since their first mention in the 1980s. As substantial efforts by both the public and private sectors have gone into the ITS field, tracking its progress and evaluating its development have become essential to transportation researchers, investors, and policy-makers. To this end, we first developed a comprehensive database of ITS publications and patents. Then we used time series analysis and content analysis on ITS-related publication and patent documents to understand general trends in ITS, the impact of federal ITS programs, the development of ITS across individual subfields, and clustering of ITS technologies. The results provide insights into academic research, commercially motivated innovation activities, and the status of ITS-related technologies.

Integrated traditional and applied education—exploring sustainable cities and regions in classrooms and communities

The most effective and promising models for teaching sustainability sciences and studies in a university setting are a topic of vigorous debate. This paper discusses an integrated sustainability curriculum at a large public university, which serves students from departments such as city and regional planning, environmental studies and sciences, geography, and many more, as well as professional schools such as public health, journalism, business, and government. We describe an integrated suite of sustainability offerings that link available academic opportunities laterally across campus to touch more students at once as well as longitudinally to provide individual students with a progressively more focused academic experience. Finally, we share lessons learned from the development of new curriculum over the last decade. The curriculum described here illuminates the larger discussion on emerging models for educating university students in planning for prosperous, stable, efficient, and just cities and regions.

Integrated traditional and applied education in a public US university: exploring sustainable cities and regions in classrooms and communities

The most effective and promising models for teaching sustainability sciences and studies in a university setting are a topic of vigorous debate. This paper discusses an integrated sustainability curriculum at a large public university, which serves students from departments such as city and regional planning, environmental studies and sciences, geography, and many more—as well as professional schools such as public health, journalism, business, and government. We describe an integrated suite of sustainability offerings that link available academic opportunities laterally across campus to touch more students at once, as well as longitudinally to provide individual students with a progressively more focused academic experience. Finally, we share lessons learned from the development of new curriculum over the last decade. The curriculum described here illuminates the larger discussion on emerging models for educating university students in planning for prosperous, stable, efficient, and just cities and regions.

Assessing Disaster Preparedness of Officials and Residents in Two North Carolina Counties

Emergency management professionals devote significant expertise and resources to preparing for emergencies through planning and exercises. Despite this preparation by professionals, residents are often unprepared for emergencies and unfamiliar with recommended practices. This is a concern particularly for those who are socially vulnerable, such as the elderly, those without transportation, or those who speak English less than well. To improve understanding of this gap in disaster preparedness, we interviewed emergency managers and others with professional knowledge about emergency preparedness and management at the Country level. Findings were validated by surveying households to gather information about services and information received from officials before, during, and after emergencies. Results suggest emergency managers are aware that improved communication with residents could improve preparedness. Residents cite clear priorities in the types of information they want from emergency managers, including where and when to evacuate, how to maintain safe water and sanitation during a disaster, and how to prepare their property for a disaster. Attention should be given to identifying vulnerable groups and providing them with information about preparing disaster plans and related topics.