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July 2004
CTS plans 'Access to Destinations' study
People travel to reach destinations for many activities. Measures of congestion, however, describe only how fast they travel, not whether their ability to access destinations has been affected. The assumption guiding a new research and outreach study is that measures of accessibility will help us better understand how our transportation and land use system is performing, how it has changed, and how future investments and policies will affect that system.
This study—Access to Destinations: How Is Our Transportation System Changing and What Can We Do About It?—will build on the results of the five-year Transportation and Regional Growth (TRG) Study. The TRG Study attracted broad interest due to the growing issue of traffic congestion in the Twin Cities. Although the study has influenced transportation policy directions by professionals and policy leaders, it has also raised new questions and issues for further research. The additional interdisciplinary research efforts under Access to Destinations will create a greater understanding of traffic congestion and develop new methods of evaluating our transportation system through the use of accessibility measures.
Multiple sponsors will be approached for this study, which will include three major research objectives:
- Improve our understanding of travel on freeways, arterials, and other roadways and of travel by non-auto modes, including transit, bicycling, and walking.
- Develop measures of accessibility using travel and land use data, resulting in a series of maps and tables that present accessibility measures by mode for each destination activity. This will be done for various locations in the Twin Cities region, showing how accessibility has changed from 1990 to 2000.
- Using these new tools and information, assess how our existing transportation and land use system meets alternative policy goals, and evaluate policy options related to investments in different transportation modes or changes in land use practices.
Research efforts will be combined with extensive outreach activities to stimulate public discussion of the research findings and their implications for public policy. CTS will host an Access to Destinations Conference on November 8–9, in partnership with other University organizations (see related article).
For more about Access to Destinations, please contact Gina Baas of CTS at 612-626-7331, baasx001@cts.umn.edu.