Neighborhood Character and Travel Behavior: Comprehensive Analysis of the United States in the 2000s

While a large number of studies have examined the effects of various measures of the built environment on travel behavior outcomes, far fewer have combined such measures to create a holistic description of the built environment in order to investigate how the overall character of a neighborhood relates to the travel decisions of residents. To address this gap in the literature, the authors develop a neighborhood typology by applying factor analysis and then cluster analysis to a set of 20 variables describing built environment characteristics for most census tracts in the United States. Based on the results of the analysis, the authors characterize each census tract as belonging to one of seven distinct types: Rural, New Development, Patchwork (mostly suburban), Established Suburbs, Urban Residential, Old Urban, or Mixed-use (mostly urban). The authors incorporate these types into a set of multivariate regression models to determine the effect of neighborhood type on the travel behavior of neighborhood residents. Controlling for personal and household characteristics, the authors find relatively little variation in the number of daily trips among neighborhood types, but substantial neighborhood variation in both personal miles traveled and mode choice. Travel by residents of the Old Urban neighborhood type, which is found almost exclusively in a handful of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, is particularly distinctive and is distinguished by a very low number miles traveled, little solo driving, and high transit use.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB10 Standing Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values. Alternate title: Neighborhood Character and Travel Behavior: A Comprehensive Analysis of the U.S. in the 2000s.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Voulgaris, Carole Turley
  • 0000-0003-0556-924X
  • Blumenberg, Evelyn
  • Taylor, Brian D
  • Brown, Anne
  • Ralph, Kelcie M
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Cluster analysis; Factor analysis; Mixed use development; Mode choice; Neighborhoods; Person miles of travel; Regression analysis; Residential areas; Rural areas; Suburbs; Travel behavior; Urban areas
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01595653
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-2942
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 2 2016 4:01PM