Effects of neighborhood environment, safety, and urban amenities on origins and destinations of walking behavior

ABSTRACT

Walking increases physical activity and reduces obesity. Walking behavior is influenced by many different factors, including urban safety. This article studies origin and destination choices of walking behavior in Salt Lake City using GIS and statistical analyzes.We find that the origins, and destinations are influenced by different neighborhood environmental factors. Street connectivity and public parks increase the number of destinations, but have little impact on the number of origins. The number of origins increases in commercial areas with compact design. In terms of safety, we find that walking behavior is influenced by robbery events rather than traffic accidents. Furthermore, a geographical weighted regression model suggests that bus stops and population density have strong positive effects in high-density areas such as the downtown areas. Our study suggests that the current analytical framework on walkability is more suitable to explain the spatial distribution of walking trip destinations than the origins.

KEYWORDS:

• Walkability
• physical activity
• urban form
• neighborhood
• safety

Acknowelegement

We would like to acknowledge the funding of the National Institute for Transportation & Communities (69A3551747112). We would also like to thank the constructive comments of Dr. Robert Argenbright.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.