Thesis (Ph. D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering)--University of California, Berkeley, 2003. / "Fall 2003." Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-136). Also available online at the ITS Berkeley web site (www.its.berkeley.edu/publications).

ABSTRACT During the last decades, environmental impacts have increased significantly, much due to the great traffic flows within cities. Therefore, to reduce these impacts and encourage a healthy way of living, it has in recent years become vital to generate safer and more sustainable and flexible modes of transportation. In order to do so, authorities and physical planners must work together to find viable solutions to incorporate in the infrastructure and offer alternative transport modes – such as walking, cycling and public transportation.  The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of the cycling infrastructure in the city of Västerås and whether it is possible to expand bicycle commuting alongside public transportation. The thesis consequently aims to study how different physical planners within Västerås municipality work with traffic related questions. The thesis is based on interviews with relevant physical planners, data from scientific literature and different strategy documents intended for Västerås municipality.  The results are based on a thematic coding system to analyse specific categories frequently mentioned during the interviews. These results have later been put into context with related literature regarding sustainable cycling infrastructure.  The results show that there is a common goal for traffic planning within the municipality, even if the authorities express different actions concerning its development.

Rapid growth and congestion within the City of Austin amplify the need to plan for and incorporate multi-modal infrastructure, facilities and policies. According to the 2005 US Census sample, the City of Austin falls short of many other bicycle-friendly cities in the number of commuters riding bicycles to work. Experiencing the achievements towards a more diverse modal share in other cities prompted the author to evaluate programmatic bicycle planning and fixed variables (geographic, demographic, and climatic conditions) in a descriptive multiple-case study. Data was collected from the City of Austin and the City of Tucson; both with significant university populations, and descriptive comparisons were made between the two cities. Findings show that the City of Tucson met most of the predicted values of ideal demographic, climatic, and programmatic variables. In addition, the City of Tucson has a well-staffed bicycle and nationally recognized regional bicycle program. Recommendations for the City of Austin include improving upon all programmatic variables (education, engineering, evaluation, enforcement and encouragement) through a new local and regional bicycle plan, and a legally mandated focus on supportive bicycle legislation, policies and enforcement. / text

Eurosclerosis is gripping Europe; one suggested remedy is higher mobility of people. That is what this thesis aims to address: Inter-municipality commuting mobility in Sweden. This essay is investigating the Swedish commuting as of 2005. The hypothesis is duly formed as such: High education is significant for the outcome of the commuting decision. The regional pattern of commuting is also considered to a degree. Aggregated data on Swedish commuting between municipalities is used. The theory used to investigate this is basic agglomeration theory including the simplest form of gravity model. Theories on utility, human capital and distance friction complement the analysis. Concluding comments include: higher education is significant for the commuting decision, and living in more densely populated areas like “big” cities increases chances of people commuting.

As cities have become increasingly motivated to be more sustainable, transport cycling has become integral in these plans. Boston is one such city enthusiastic about bicycle transportation. I take a socio-discursive approach to an investigation of transport cycling integration in Boston, MA. First, I explore the historical processes leading to the appearance of bike lanes on U.S. city streets. Next, I investigate how bike lanes are entwined in cycling safety—both in the discursive and embodied dimensions. What begins as a concern of the physical body leads to ideals of legitimacy and inclusivity, of which the bike lane has become a key symbol and act of these imaginings. Third, I tease out how this logic of cycling safety qua inclusivity becomes one that employs a rightsbased notion of social justice in which legitimacy, and ultimately safety, is garnered through becoming intelligible, or visible, as cycling subjects. Finally, I depart from a liberal democratic notion of social justice and make a case for understanding how bike lanes work through the lens of what Foucault terms “security.” I explore how we can view bikeways discourse as a technology of power that can be mobilized to transform social interaction in the city.

Public transportation policy plays a significant role in facilitating ridership as well as travel modes, economic activities, and environmental aspects. Seoul has experienced rapid urbanization. Also, high density developments and uncontrolled land use gave rise to extensive urban sprawl in the Seoul Metropolitan Areas (SMA). Due to increased use of private vehicles, which created serious traffic congestion, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) has reformed public transportation policies-introduced bus transportation reform (BTR) in 2004 and reformed fare and ticketing structures in 2009. This research focuses on the relationships between socioeconomic characteristics and commuting patterns by applying smart card data that includes individual travel behaviors during commuting periods. Among regression results, average commuting times are significantly associated with the proportion of population with lower levels of education and the number of public transit stations. These results appear to support the idea that the lower educated people in each district tend to have longer commuting times. Also, the greater availability of public transit stations contributes to shorter commuting times. Finally, analyzing commuting times seems to be important for determining demographic movement as well as locational advantages in certain regions of Seoul based on public transportation policies.

Walking and bicycling to work, active commuting, can contribute to sustainable mobility and provide regular health-enhancing physical activity for individuals. Our knowledge of active commuting behaviours in general and in different mode and gender groups in particular is limited. Moreover, the validity and reproducibility of the methods to measure the key variables of the behaviours are uncertain. The aims of this thesis is to explore gender and mode choice differences in commuting behaviours in terms of distance, duration, velocity and trip frequency, of a group of adult commuters in Greater Stockholm, Sweden, and furthermore to develop a criterion method for distance measurements and to assess the validity of four other distance measurement methods. We used one sample of active commuters recruited by advertisements, n = 1872, and one street-recruited sample, n = 140. Participants received a questionnaire and a map to draw their commuting route on. The main findings of the thesis were, firstly, that the map-based method could function as a criterion method for active commuting distance measurements and, secondly, that four assessed distance measurement methods – straight-line distance, GIS, GPS and self-report – differed significantly from the criterion method. Therefore, we recommend the use of correction factors to compensate for the systematic over- and underestimations. We also found three distinctly different modality groups in both men and women with different behaviours in commuting distance, duration and trip frequency. These groups were commuters who exclusively walk or bicycle the whole way to work, and dual mode commuters who switch between walking and cycling. These mode groups accrued different amounts of activity time for commuting. Through active commuting per se, the median pedestrian and dual mode commuters met or were close to the recommended physical activity level of 150 minutes per week during most months of the year, whereas the single mode cyclists did so only during the summer half of the year.

Because mobility is associated with rural social decline, this two-phase cross sectional study investigates whether social patterns in small, rural Australian towns are affected by commuting. Quantitative data, which was gathered via a mail-out questionnaire (response = 54 per cent) that was issued to 1,040 occupationally diverse professionals who worked in fourteen towns throughout north-western Victoria, was analysed to determine whether commuting and non-commuting professionals differed significantly in their community involvement. To explain why certain relationships emerged from survey analysis, face-toface interviews were subsequently undertaken with 24 questionnaire respondents. The key finding of this study is that there is a significant relationship between commuting status and the retention of rural professionals. A significantly greater proportion of noncommuters than commuters remain working in the one location for longer than five years. This finding has important implications for the sustainability of rural areas. / Doctor of Philosophy

Because mobility is associated with rural social decline, this two-phase cross sectional study investigates whether social patterns in small, rural Australian towns are affected by commuting. Quantitative data, which was gathered via a mail-out questionnaire (response = 54 per cent) that was issued to 1,040 occupationally diverse professionals who worked in fourteen towns throughout north-western Victoria, was analysed to determine whether commuting and non-commuting professionals differed significantly in their community involvement. To explain why certain relationships emerged from survey analysis, face-toface interviews were subsequently undertaken with 24 questionnaire respondents. The key finding of this study is that there is a significant relationship between commuting status and the retention of rural professionals. A significantly greater proportion of noncommuters than commuters remain working in the one location for longer than five years. This finding has important implications for the sustainability of rural areas. / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (M. Env. St.)--University of Adelaide, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-208).