Residential Self-Selection and Nonwork Travel: Evidence Using New Data and Methods

Residents of dense, mixed-use, transit-accessible neighborhoods use autos less. Recent studies have suggested that this relationship is partly because transit- and walk-preferring households seek and find such neighborhoods. If so, policies to alter the built environment may not influence auto use very much if the number of such households is small. I argue that these studies are largely inconclusive on methodological grounds, and more research is needed. Here a purpose-designed survey of households in two urban regions in California is investigated using improved analytical methods. Many households in this data set explicitly consider travel access in choosing a neighborhood, but this process of residential self-selection does not bias estimates of the built environment’s effects very much. To the extent that it does, failing to account for residential self-selection may actually result in research underestimating built environment effects. The results strengthen the argument for not only deregulatory approaches to land use and transportation planning, but for market interventions such as subsidies and new prescriptive regulations.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Chatman, Daniel G
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2008-1-13 to 2008-1-17
• Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 42p
• Monograph Title: TRB 87th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Automobiles; Behavior; Households; Land use; Mode choice; Public transit; Residential areas; Transportation modes; Transportation planning; Urban areas; Walking
• Geographic Terms: Chicago (Illinois)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01089198
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 08-2506
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 27 2008 8:58AM