Use of Walk Opportunities Index to Quantify Local Accessibility
Abstract
A research effort was undertaken by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, Maryland, to explore further the relationship between land use and transportation to support regional planning analysis. Particular attention was given to quantifying the role of key land use factors such as density, diversity, and design (3Ds) and regional accessibility in determining rates of vehicle ownership and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The research was facilitated by a recent regional household travel survey and significant untapped geographic information system (GIS) resources. What began as an effort simply to replicate the approach of an earlier published study that incorporated the 3Ds took an unexpected turn. The result was an entirely new measure, a walk opportunities index, which combines information on the number, character, and desirability of key activities located within walking distance of a household. GIS procedures were used to trace walk paths to each destination by using the street grid and to compute travel times while adjusting for topography and difficult street crossings. By using the gravity model paradigm, each opportunity was then discounted by its travel time and the results summed into a single measure of walk opportunities. When used in combination with measures of entropy, regional accessibility, and socioeconomic characteristics, this new index had important statistical value in regression models of household auto ownership and VMT. The ability of these models to address the travel effects of alternative transportation and land use development plans or policies makes them a potentially powerful tool in regional planning activities.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
1. Cervero R. America's Suburban Centers: The Land Use–Transportation Link. Unwin-Hyman, Boston, Mass., 1989.
2. Kockelman K. Travel Behavior as a Function of Accessibility, Land Use Mixing, and Land Use Balance: Evidence from the San Francisco Bay Area. Master's thesis. Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, 1996.
3. Rutherford G. S., McCormack E., and Wilkinson M. Travel Impacts of Urban Form: Implications from an Analysis of Two Seattle Area Travel Diaries. Presented at Urban Design, Telecommuting and Travel Forecasting Conference, Williamsburg, Va., 1997.
4. Krizek K. Residential Relocation and Changes in Urban Travel: Does Neighborhood-Scale Urban Form Matter? APA Journal, Vol. 63, Summer 2003.
5. Kuzmyak J. R., Pratt R. H., and Douglas B. G. TCRP Report 95: Land Use and Site Design. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2003.
6. Our Nation's Travel: 1995 NPTS Early Results Report. FHWA, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1997.
7. Reno A., Kuzmyak R., and Douglas B. TCRP Report 73: Characteristics of Urban Transportation Demand. TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2002.
8. Criterion Planners & Engineers. Smart Growth INDEX®: A Sketch Tool for Community Planning. User Notebook. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2002.
9. Ewing R., and Cervero R. Travel and the Built Environment: A Synthesis. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1780, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2001, pp. 87–114.
10. Li H., and Reynolds J. F. A New Contagion Index to Quantify Spatial Patterns of Landscapes. Landscape Ecology, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1993, pp. 155–162.
11. Parsons Brinckerhoff, Cambridge Systematics, and Calthorpe Associates. The Pedestrian Environment. LUTAQ Project, Vol. 4A. 1000 Friends of Oregon, Portland, Ore., 1993.
12. Schlossberg M, and Brown N. Comparing Transit-Oriented Development Sites by Walkability Indicators. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1887, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2004, pp. 34–42.
13. Banerjee T., and Bear W. Beyond the Neighborhood Unit: Residential Environments and Public Policy. Plenum Press, New York, 1984.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published: January 2006
Issue published: January 2006
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Journals metrics
This article was published in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board.
VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICSArticle usage*
Total views and downloads: 212
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 0
Crossref: 28
- Planning factors affecting carbon footprints of residents: Density, la...
- Role of the neighborhood environment in psychological resilience
- Untangling the relationships among residential environment, destinatio...
- Global interest in walking accessibility: a scoping review
- Impacts of Built-Environment on Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Traffic:...
- The Impacts of Urban Form on Carbon Emissions: A Comprehensive Review
- The impact of perceived racism on walking behavior during the COVID-19...
- Spatial Pattern of the Walkability Index, Walk Score and Walk Score Mo...
- Validation of a Japanese walkability index using large-scale step coun...
- Commuters' Preference to Walk: Developing a Structural Equation Model ...
- Urban Accessibility and Social Equity in Covid-19 Era: A Spatial Analy...
- Assessing the Rationality and Walkability of Campus Layouts
- Determining If Walkability and Bikeability Indices Reflect Pedestrian ...
- Developing Shopping and Dining Walking Indices Using POIs and Remote S...
- Metropolitan sprawl measurement and its impacts on commuting trips and...
- Measuring walking behaviour in commuting to work: investigating the ro...
- Neighborhood Walkability and Active Transportation: A Correlation Stud...
- Modelling walking accessibility: A case study of Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Is Seoul Walkable? Assessing a Walkability Score and Examining Its Rel...
- Do People Desire to Walk More in Commuting to Work? Examining a Concep...
- The Pleasure of Walking: An Innovative Methodology to Assess Appropria...
- Walkability Assessment in a Rapidly Urbanizing City and Its Relationsh...
- RETRACTED ARTICLE: Estimating walking access levels incorporating dist...
- Non-work accessibility and related outcomes
- Can land use planning help mitigate transport-related carbon emissions...
- Spatial transferability assessment of a composite walkability index: T...
- Built environment and mode choice relationship for commute travel in t...
- Influence of Political Regime Change to Land Use Development in Urban ...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
