National Center for Smart Growth

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21472

The National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) works to advance the notion that research, collaboration, engagement and thoughtful policy development hold the key to a smarter and more sustainable approach to urban and regional development. NCSG is based at the University of Maryland, College Park, housed under the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, with support from the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, the A. James Clark School of Engineering, the School of Public Policy, and the Office of the Provost.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.walkability

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Assessing the impact of urban form measures in nonwork trip mode choice after controlling for demographic and level-of-service effects
    (2003) Rajamani, Jayanthi; Bhat, Chandra R.; Handy, Susan; Knaap, Gerritt; Song, Yan
    The relationship between travel behavior and the local built environment continues to be a contentious issue, despite several research efforts in the area. The current paper investigates the significance and explanatory power of a variety of urban form measures on nonwork activity travel mode choice. The travel data used for analysis is the 1995 Portland Metropolitan Activity Survey conducted by Portland Metro. The database on the local built environment was developed by Song (2002) and includes a more extensive set of variables than previous studies that have examined the relationship between travel behavior and the local built environment using the Portland data. A multinomial logit mode choice model results indicate that higher residential densities and mixed-uses promote walking behavior for nonwork activities.
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    Measuring Urban Design Qualities: An Illustrated Field Manual
    (2005) Clemente, Otto; Ewing, Reid
    This manual is the product of nearly a year and a half of research on urban design qualities related to walkability. It builds on a growing body of evidence that links the built environment to active living. This manual will provide a qualitative introduction to several key urban design qualities from the urban design literature, and then will provide guidance on how to objectively measure each quality for a typical street.
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    Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting
    (2003) Ewing, Reid
    Travel and Environmental Implications of School Siting, released by the EPA on October 8, 2003, is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between school locations, the built environment around schools, how kids get to school, and the impact on air emissions of those travel choices. Over the next few decades, communities making decisions about the construction and renovation of thousands of schools will be challenged to meet multiple goals -- educational, fiscal, and environmental. The study finds that: School proximity to students matters. Students with shorter walk and bike times to school are more likely to walk or bike. The built environment influences travel choices. Students traveling through pedestrian-friendly environments are more likely to walk or bike. Because of travel behavior differences, school location has an impact on air emissions. Centrally located schools that can be reached by walking and bicycling result in reduced air emissions from driving. More data collection and research are needed to add further to the understanding of these effects. Specifically, improved data about both school travel and the built environment as well as new modeling techniques can build on these results. For some time, there has been a trend toward construction of big schools and requirements for large sites. Guidelines, recommendations, and standards that encourage or require building large schools on new campuses or discourage renovation are embedded in a variety of state and local regulations, laws and funding formulas. This study provides important information about the effect of school location on how children get to school. It shows that school siting and design can affect choices of walking, biking, or driving. In turn, these changes in travel choices could affect traffic congestion, air pollution, and school transportation budgets.
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    Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities Related to Walkability
    (2005) Clemente, Otto; Ewing, Reid
    In active living research, measures used to characterize the built environment have been mostly gross qualities such as neighborhood density and park access. This project has developed operational definitions and measurement protocols for subtler urban design qualities believed to be related to walkability. METHODS: Methods included: 1) recruiting an expert panel; 2) shooting video clips of streetscapes; 3) rating urban design qualities of streetscapes by the expert panel; 4) measuring physical features of streetscapes from the video clips; 5) testing inter-rater reliability of physical measurements and urban design quality ratings; 6) statistically analyzing relationships between physical features and urban design quality ratings, 7) selecting of qualities for operationalization, and 8) developing of operational definitions and measurement protocols for urban design qualities based on statistical relationships. RESULTS: Operational definitions and measurement protocols were developed for five of nine urban design qualities: imageability, visual enclosure, human scale, transparency, and complexity. CONCLUSIONS: A field survey instrument has been developed, tested in the field, and further refined for use in active living research.