Re-examining TOCs through the Lens of Differential Responsibilities: Role of Street Network Structure on Effective Availability
Recent literature suggests that households in transit-oriented developments (TODs) spend less on the combined cost of housing and transportation (Zhou & Zolnik 2013, Dong 2021). Other research suggests that TOD residents engage in more physical activity due to the built environment factors than people living in other areas (e.g., suburbs) (Langlois et. al. 2016, Appleyard et al. 2019). In this research project, we start by asking the question what it means for a TOD to be effective and available for people of all abilities. We will then investigate and quantify the relationship between the street network structure and different users’ ease of access to destinations in a variety of built environment combinations. We will consider a variety of destinations related to educational facilities, healthy food, health care facilities, and job opportunities. Instead of assuming an average user and commuting trip purpose, we will examine availability of transit through the lens of users with different abilities and travel needs. This approach is based on the hypothesis that person-level attributes strongly affect real availability of transit and the lack of available research on this topic. For example, even when seemingly adequate transit is available, some users may avoid transit at night if the bus stop or the first/last mile travel does not feel safe (Chowdhury and Van Wee, 2020). The reason for including trip purpose is that our previous research has shown that people value trips differently depending on the purpose. In other words, people might be unwilling to take transit with certain trips such as a medical appointment due to concerns over reliability. We propose to adopt the framework and protocols suggested by Ewing et al. in their article ‘Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities Related to Walkability’ (2006). We will use a similar framework for measuring transit availability for a sample of stops within a few selected Regional Transit District (RTD) bus and train routes. The transit stops will be selected based on propensity score matching of neighborhoods on certain qualities like tree cover, number of schools, employment and residential density etc. to understand their impact on ridership. Routes will be selected based on whether they lie on or in close connectivity to the proposed BRT corridors in the Denver Metro so that preemptive policies and measures can be designed to support and boost ridership post launch of the BRT services. The proposed project is also tied to a transit design class that will be offered at CU Denver in Fall 2024. Through projects, students will get hands-on experience of identifying urban design elements that support and promote universal availability of transit to reach desired destinations. The outputs will include: 1) At least one conference paper to be submitted to Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2) At least two peer reviewed journal publications 3) An open source map of the accessibility metric for the routes and stops so that users can change different parameters of the metric and visualize the change in outcome and 4) Design project reports with recommendations from the class which will be hosted on the class website in the future.
- Record URL:
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Supplemental Notes:
- Funding: $100,000 USDOT + $50,000 Matching = $150,000
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Active
- Funding: $150000
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Contract Numbers:
69A3552348337
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Sponsor Organizations:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Managing Organizations:
Center for Transit-Oriented Communities (CETOC)
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, LA United States -
Project Managers:
Kline, Robin
Danton, Bob
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Performing Organizations:
University of Colorado, Denver
Denver, CO United States -
Principal Investigators:
Misra, Aditi
Marshall, Wesley
Shirgaokar, Manish
- Start Date: 20241001
- Expected Completion Date: 20260531
- Actual Completion Date: 0
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Accessibility; Housing; Network analysis (Planning); Transit oriented development
- Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01928839
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Center for Transit-Oriented Communities (CETOC)
- Contract Numbers: 69A3552348337
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Aug 26 2024 3:00PM