How Far, by Which Route, and Why? Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference

TLDR

Interest in community walkability has spurred policy initiatives, yet little is known about how far people walk or how street design influences their willingness to walk to destinations. This study surveyed pedestrians to determine how far they walk to light rail stations and which environmental factors shape their route choices. The survey revealed that pedestrians travel farther than assumed, prioritize minimizing time and distance, consider safety, attractiveness, sidewalk quality, and traffic light wait as secondary factors, vary in distance estimation accuracy, and that map tracing is an effective research method.

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in community walkability, as reflected in the growing number of state and federal initiatives on Safe Routes to School, the new concern over a national obesity epidemic (especially in children), and a wide range of policy initiatives designed to convince travelers to switch from auto trips to more environmentally sustainable bicycle and walking trips. In each of these cases, policy makers recognize walking as a key mode of travel and believe that increasing the number of walk trips is a key goal. Despite the seeming simplicity of the goal, we know very little about how far people actually walk or about how street design affects people’s willingness or capacity to access their desired destinations by walking. This paper reports on a survey designed to answer two primary research questions related to the topic of pedestrian behavior: (1) How far do pedestrians walk to light rail stations? (2) What environmental factors do they say influence their route choice? The paper concludes with five major findings about our study population at five rail transit stations in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and in Portland, Oregon: (1) Pedestrians walk considerably farther to access light rail stations than commonly assumed. (2) Pedestrians believe that their primary consideration in choosing a route is minimizing time and distance. (3) Secondary factors influencing route choice are safety and, to a lesser extent, attractiveness of the route, sidewalk quality, and the absence of long waits at traffic lights. (4) Pedestrians vary considerably in how accurately they estimate the distance of a regular walk trip. (5) Asking survey respondents to trace their walking route on a local map is an effective research technique.