Bicycle and Bus Commuting to an Urban Campus: Overcoming the Barriers

Many urban universities in the United States are encouraging students, faculty, and staff to commute to campus by bus and bicycle rather than by driving alone. Shifting drive-alone trips to bus and bicycle modes can reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, traffic crash risk, and the demand for parking in a constrained campus environment. In order to increase bus and bicycle commuting, it is important to identify existing barriers to using these modes and develop appropriate strategies to overcome them. This paper analyzes unique data collected from more than 3,000 students and 600 faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) to improve understanding of barriers to bus and bicycle commuting. Responses were stratified to identify barriers cited by short-distance drivers and existing bus and bicycle commuters, groups who may have considerable potential to increase bus and bicycle use. Travel time was the most significant barrier to bus commuting reported by all groups. However, open-ended survey comments also revealed the bus barriers of reliability, cost, and off-peak service coverage. Distance was a commonly-cited barrier to bicycle commuting, and it was associated with other key barriers, such as weather, road safety, and road conditions. Bicycle access and security were bicycle barriers to short-distance student commuters. By identifying these barriers, this research points to specific strategies that can be implemented to increase bus and bicycle mode shares and reduce drive-alone commuting to campus.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Bicycle Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Schneider, Robert J
  • Hu, Lingqian
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle commuting; Bus transit; Campuses; Commuting; Modal shift; Mode choice; School trips; Urban areas
• Identifier Terms: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
• Uncontrolled Terms: Barriers
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01515760
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4066
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 25 2014 9:15AM