Influence of built environment on travel behavior has been recognized by several studies
in last decade (Cervero 2003, 2004, Ewing at al 2003 and etc.). Easy access to the transit
station and mixed land use has been largely emphasized by New Urbanist because of its
influence on transit ridership and reduction of vehicle mile travel. However, empirical
evidence that proximity of residential location to the transit station or mixed land use
reduces auto dependency and encourages transit ridership has been lack for Chicago
metropolitan region in spite of its long history of transit development.
This study uses 2007 Chicago metropolitan region travel tracking study data and travel
characteristics of residents living within walkable distance from the CAT or METRA rail
station in Chicago Metropolitan region was analyzed in comparison with those of
residents living beyond walkable distance from the rail station in order to find any
difference in socio-demographic characteristics and travel characteristics.
In general, households located within walkable distance (a quarter mile for this study)
from the rail station are more likely to be low income households, to reside in a multifamily
rental housing. Residents living within walkable distance show higher portion of
African American or Asian proportion, of smaller-sized households (a single member
household or childless household). They are likely to own fewer cars than residents living far from the rail station. With this observation of some difference in sociodemographic
and travel characteristics between two groups, probability of transit use
and rail use in a relationship with home location and job location were tested using
binary logistic model. The result indicates that the number of household vehicles per
person in the household influences negatively on residential location. The more
available household cars per person, the less likely it is that a household is located
within walkable distance from the rail station. Work location was also an important
factor for transit or rail use. This provides evidence that providing mixed land use
where jobs and housing are all provided within walkable distance from the transit
station can increase transit use and reduces auto-dependency that current American
society is facing severely. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/22376 |
| Date | 21 November 2013 |
| Creators | Hong, Sujin, active 2008 |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works., Restricted |
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