Built environment and nonmotorized travel: Evidence from Baltimore City using the NHTS

Abstract

The relationship between land use and travel behavior is a topic of debate among researchers and practitioners seeking to find land-use planning interventions to manage travel demand. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of several land-use, urban form, and neighborhood-level design attributes, as well as traveler attitudes/ perceptions of the urban system, on the frequency of walking, and the share of walking trips relative to total trips. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey add-on for the Baltimore metropolitan region, the paper estimates Poisson regression models at the person-level for the number of walking trips and a linear regression model for the share of walking trips made during a single travel day. The results suggest that neighborhoods with higher densities, more diverse land-use mixes, better street connectivity, and better access to bus transit lines are associated with persons who walk more frequently and make more walking trips with respect to trips made by other modes. Among the built environment variables, street network connectivity had the largest elasticity with respect to frequency of walking. Potential limitations of the analytical approach, as well as the degree of generalization of the results and their policy implications, are discussed.