ITS Berkeley

Despite earlier attempts to evaluate the consequences of urban containment policy adoption, the transport implications of these policies have been overlooked. This paper examines the impact that containment policies have on population density and vehicle miles travelled per capita. An empirical analysis is conducted, relying on a fixed-effects model for panel data for the largest 25 metropolitan areas in the US during the 1982-94 time-period. Because the outcomes are endogenously related, instrumental variable regression is used to test hypotheses about the effect of the presence and...

The built environment may be responsible for making nonmotorized transportation inconvenient, resulting in declines in physical activity. However, few studies have assessed both the perceived and objectively measured environment in association with physical activity outcomes. The purpose of this study was to describe the associations between perceptions and objective measures of the built environment and their associations with leisure, walking, and transportation activity. Perception of the environment was assessed from responses to 1,270 telephone surveys conducted in Forsyth...

Recognizing the need for consistent, reliable, and efficient methods to collect information about the walking environment, the authors have developed and tested a complete environmental audit methodology—the Pedestrian Environmental Data Scan (PEDS). In this paper, the development of the audit methodology is presented, including the design of the instrument, the creation of training and supporting materials, administration, and integration with handheld technology. Various tests of inter- and intra-rater reliability of our instrument have been conducted, including individual audit...