Walking and Transit Use Behavior in Walkable Urban Neighborhoods

Abstract

Urban transportation is one of the most important target sectors for creating more sustainable and livable cities. Many US cities are making huge investments in public transit infrastructure in efforts to lower automobile use, encourage compact development, and curb greenhouse gas emissions. This paper explores how differences in the urban environment impact walking and transit use and how urban residents utilize walking and transit as modes of transportation. I use data from neighborhood mapping, observations, surveys, and interviews to explore these two questions. I find that walking is indeed the main mode of transportation within the urban core of Seattle. In contrast to what mainstream urban planning literature would suggest, residents living in the dense urban core of Seattle do not appear to be transit dependent and continue to drive at higher than expected rates. To help explain this, I explore how the 'theory of urban fabrics' applies to walkability and transit planning. This new emerging theory encourages planners to rediscover how to prioritize different modes of transportation within different parts of the city instead of current trends, which advocate for multimodal and shared streets throughout the city. Evidence indicates that the most walkable neighborhoods are those that have 52 Michigan Journal of Sustainability, sustainability.umich.edu/mjs the least number of conflicts between pedestrians, transit, and automobiles, and that the transit system in Seattle suffers because it is not prioritized over cars in any significant way. This reduces the likelihood that individuals will make the switch to transit over driving, which has important implications for transportation planning policies.

The Hierarchy of Walking Needs and the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Among the existing theories, the theory of urban fabrics supports the need to study different urban sectors based on their dominant urban form. This theory suggests that different planning approaches are needed in different parts of the city based on their dominant urban form [ 62 ]. Further studies are required to understand how to organize the movement of pedestrians in different urban configurations in order to increase the resiliency of walking environments in the face of this pandemic as well as a similar crisis situation in the future.…”

Toward Safe and Efficient Human-Robot Interaction via Behavior-Driven Danger Signaling

“…Running Example: The formulation of the goal objective function Q H g (•) is quite straightforward, as the pedestrian wants to walk from one sidewalk to the other sidewalk of the street. For what concerns the safety objective function Q H s (•), it is possible to learn it for pedestrians 1 based upon behavioral patterns [35,36,37,38]. Note that since β multiplies Q H s (•) in (4), either β = 0 (i.e., unaware humans) or Q H s (•) = 0 (e.g., children who do not recognize the danger) has the same results in human actions.…”

The Impact of University Campus Spatial Organisation on Pedestrian Speed: A Comparison between the Old and New Campuses of Sulaimani University

“…However, fewer people now walk to work, school, university, or shops than in the past, and increasing obesity levels are part of a wider trend towards decreasing activity levels for parts of the population at all ages. When urban planners and designers neglect pedestrians as a main component of the transportation system, the resulting systems are suboptimal from the perspective of walkability, sustainability, and multi-modal transportation efficiency and equity [6]. Transportation systems that are designed only for motorized traffic also impose dangers on those who walk [7].…”