Accessibility and Mode-Destination Choice Decisions: Exploring Travel in Three Neighborhoods in Puget Sound, WA

Despite the popularity of the neotraditional development concept, attempts to investigate the effectiveness of various mixed-use core (MUC) designs in terms of induced localized walking trips are rare. In this study, we use the logsum measure of accessibility derived from a random utility model to investigate how neighborhood design and regional setting affect mode and destination choices for shopping and how these effects vary by income and day of week. We then use the random utility model to simulate changes in the design configuration of the neighborhood MUC and evaluate the effects of the changes on within-neighborhood-accessibility and travel-decision parameters. Our results provide insight on how traditional neighborhood residents choose destinations and modes for their shopping travel and how the geometric design of the MUC can affect travel decisions. We found that local and regional accessibility have interrelated effects on the choice decisions of traditional residents, which results in variations in travel decisions over neighborhood space. In addition, these variations appear even after controlling for income groups and day of week. In simulations evaluating the effectiveness of alternative MUC designs, we find that the optimal MUC design is the one that maximizes proximity to all residential locations in the neighborhood. That is, MUC designs that are confined to the center of the neighborhood are less effective in inducing within-neighborhood shopping.