2007 Access to Destinations Conference

August 23 and 24, 2007
University of Minnesota

View 2007 Conference Proceedings (1 MB PDF)

Traffic congestion, urban sprawl, environmental pollution, the availability of reliable transportation options—these issues have profound implications for the livability and economic viability of cities.

The second Access to Destinations Conference brought together leading researchers whose work examines intersections of transportation, land use, and public policy for a wide-ranging discussion of the challenges facing the transportation system today, and strategies for meeting the needs of tomorrow.

The conference format included a half-day of presentations and discussions open to the public, followed by a day and a half of technical, academic presentations and panels for invited participants.

Issues that this conference, and ongoing research, seeked to address include:

• The relationship between traffic congestion levels and the ability of individuals to access destinations associated with employment, education, medical care, shopping, and recreation
• The effects of land development strategies, zoning policies, and neighborhood designs on accessibility
• The factors influencing the location decisions of households and organizations
• The tools needed to evaluate impacts of transportation strategies such as expansion of road networks, investments in transit, operational and technological enhancements, and designs that emphasize bicycle and pedestrian travel
• What tools are needed to evaluate the impacts of transportation strategies such as expanded freeway and road systems, transit investments, technologies and operational improvements, and designs that emphasize bicycle and pedestrian travel systems?

Conference Program

Thursday, August 23

General Sessions

8:00  Welcome and Opening Remarks

Robert Johns, Director, University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies [view presentation (3.6 MB PDF)]

8:30  International Perspectives on Accessibility

Moderator: John Adams, Professor, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota

• Accessibility: Long-Term Perspectives
  Kay Axhausen, Professor, Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [view presentation (12.6 MB PDF)]
• On the Provision of Sustainable Public Transit Services: The Case of Hong Kong
  Hong K. Lo, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [view presentation (8.2 MB PDF)]
• Sprawl and Accessibility
  Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago [view presentation (9.7 MB PDF)]

10:00  Break

10:30  Implications for Research and Practice

A panel of experts will discuss issues raised during the first session, with special emphasis on new directions in research, systems management, and public policy.

Moderator: Robert Johns, Director, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota

• David Levinson, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota
• Kevin Krizek, Associate Professor of Planning, Design, and Civil Engineering, University of Colorado
• Anne Canby, President, Surface Transportation Policy Project
• Sam Seskin, Transportation Planning Director, CH2MHill

12:00 p.m.  Adjourn

The general sessions will be followed by a series of technical sessions for invited participants.

 

Technical Sessions

1:45   Technical Session #1A

Moderator: Steven Polzin, University of South Florida

• Accessibility, Productivity and Traffic Congestion: Findings for Major Activity Centers – David Hartgen and Gregory Fields, University of North Carolina at Charlotte [view presentation (2.8 MB PDF)]
• ’Optimal‘ Accessibility Landscapes? Developing a New Methodology for Simulating and Assessing Jobs–Housing Relationships in Urban Regions – Mark Horner, The Florida State University [view presentation (1.5 MB PDF)]
• Spatializing the Dissimilarity Index to Measure Jobs Housing Balance: A GIS Approach – Bernadette Marion and Mark Horner, The Florida State University [view presentation (1.9 MB PDF)]

      Technical Session #1B

Moderator: John Ottensmann, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

• A Geo-spatial Methodology Used to Site Accessible Facility Locations for the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa – Johan Maritz and Zaid Kimmie, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa [view presentation (4.0 MB PDF)]

• The Role of Employment Subcenters and the Built Environment in Residential Location Decisions – Eun Joo Cho, Daniel Rodriguez and Yan Song, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill [view presentation (300 KB PDF)]

• Measurement of Accessibility for Business Establishments: An Empirical Evaluation – Kazuya Kawamura, University of Illinois Chicago [view presentation (600 KB PDF)]

3:00   Break

3:30   Technical Session #2A

Moderator: Daniel Baldwin Hess, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

• How Stable are Preferences for Neighborhood Characteristics and Accessibility? Analyzing Residential Location Decisions – Ryan Wilson and Kevin Krizek, University of Minnesota, and Ahmed El-Geneidy, McGill University, Canada [view presentation (5.3 MB PDF)]
• Relative Space and Sustainable Mobility: Using Accessibility Disparity as an Explanation of Commuting Patterns – David de Sousa Vale, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal [view presentation (1.4 MB PDF)]
• Urban Form and Travel Behaviour Relationships in Tyne and Wear, North East England, United Kingdom – Paulus Aditjandra and Corinne Mulley, Newcastle University, and John Nelson, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom [view presentation (4.0 MB PDF)]

      Technical Session #2B

Moderator: Hong K. Lo, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

• Access to Railway Stations and Its Potential in Increasing Rail Use – Moshe Givoni, Martijn Brons, and Piet Rietvold, The Free University, The Netherlands [view presentation (400 KB PDF)]

• Exploring the Availability of Public Transportation Services Through Analysis of the National Household Travel Survey Appended Data – Steven Polzin and Edward Maggio, University of South Florida [view presentation (1.7 MB PDF)]

• An Application of the Accessibility Indexing Model: Coomera, Australia – Tan Yigitcanlar, Queensland University of Technology, and Rick Evans and Neil Sipe, Giffith University, Australia

Friday, August 24

Technical Sessions

8:30  Technical Session #3A

Moderator: Kazuya Kawamura

• Assessing the Extent of Transport Social Exclusion Among the Elderly – Helena Titheridge, Kamal Achuthan, and Roger Mackett University College London, and Juliet Solomon, London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom [view presentation (700 KB PDF)]
• Determinants of Residential Location Decisions Among the Pre-Elderly – Hazel Morrow-Jones and Moon Jeong Kim, The Ohio State University [view presentation (1.0 MB PDF)]
• Mode Choice of Older People Before and After Shopping – Fengming Su, Jan-Dirk Schmöcker, and Michael Bell, Imperial College, United Kingdom [view presentation (1.0 MB PDF)]

         Technical Session #3B

Moderator: Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Who Plans Accessibility? The Dilemma of Planning for Accessibility in a Fragmented Metropolitan Region – David King, University of California, Los Angeles [view presentation (400 KB PDF)]

• How to Plan for Regional Accessibility? – Thomas Straatemeier, Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies, The Netherlands [view presentation (1.0 MB PDF)]

• Accessibility, Travel Behavior, and New Urbanism: Case Study of Mixed-Use
  Centers and Auto-Oriented Corridors in the South Bay Region– Kenneth Joh and Marlon Boarnet, University of California, Irvine [view presentation (1.6 MB PDF)]

9:45  Break

10:15  Technical Session #4A

Moderator: Mark Horner, The Florida State University

• Measuring Accessibility as Experienced by Young People — Sarah Wixey, JMP Consulting, Helena Titheridge and Peter Jones, University College London, and Georgina Christodoulou, University of Westminster, United Kingdom [view presentation (600 KB PDF)]
• Influence of Proximity and Access on Transit Ridership for Older Adults – Daniel Baldwin Hess, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
• What Do I Consider Safe?: Analyzing the Spatial Perceptions and Social Activities of Teenagers in Providence, RI – Talia McCray, Farhad Atash, Charles Collyer, and Don Cunnigen, University of Rhode Island [view presentation (4.6 MB PDF)]

  Technical Session #4B

Moderator: Jan-Dirk Schmoecker

• Accessibility Impacts of Orbital Motorways on Metropolitan Areas: a Case Study of M30, M40 and M50 in Madrid – Juan Carlos Martin and Concepion Roman, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Javier Gutierrez, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain [view presentation (1.6 MB PDF)]
• The Coevolution of Transport and Land Use in London – David Levinson, University of Minnesota

11:30  Lunch

12:30  Technical Session #5A

Moderator: Kay Axhausen, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

• The Co-evolution of Land Use and Road Networks – Feng Xie, David Levinson, and Shanjiang Zhu, University of Minnesota
• Cities as Organisms: Allometric Scaling in US Urban Road Networks – Horacio Samaniego and Melanie Moses, University of New Mexico [view presentation (3.5 MB PDF)]
• Accessibility Analysis of Multimodal Transport Systems Using Advanced GIS Techniques – Tor Vorraa, Citilabs Regional Director, United Kingdom [view presentation (1.8 MB PDF)]

          Technical Session #5B

Moderator: Qing Shen, University of Maryland

• A Use-Based Measure of Accessibility to Linear Features to Predict Urban Trail Use – John Ottensmann and Greg Lindsey, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis [view presentation (7.5 MB PDF)]
• How Close is Close Enough? – Michael Iacono, University of Minnesota [view presentation (2.0 MB PDF)]
• Differentiating the Influence of Accessibility, Attitudes, and Demographics on Stop Participation and Frequency during the Evening Commute – Xinyu (Jason) Cao, University of Minnesota, and Patricia Mokhtarian and Susan Handy, University of California, Davis [view presentation (700 KB PDF)]

1:45  Break

2:00  Technical Session #6

Moderator: Helena Titheridge, University College London

• Accessibility and Cognition: the Effect of Transportation Mode on Spatial Knowledge – Andrew Mondschein, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian Taylor, University of California, Los Angeles [view presentation (1.0 MB PDF)]
• Social Networks and Location Choice – Nebiyou Tilahun and David Levinson, University of Minnesota
• Accessibility Measures for Comparative Analysis of Metropolitan Areas – Qing Shen, University of Maryland

3:15  Break

3:30  Wrap-Up & Synthesis

Robert Johns, David Levinson, Kevin Krizek, Kay Axhausen, Robert Bruegmann, and Hong K. Lo

4:00  Adjourn

Presenters and Panelists

David Levinson is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His research includes work on road-pricing strategies, travel demand forecasting, and modeling the growth of transportation networks. He is a co-leader of the Access to Destinations Study and recently co-authored The Transportation Experience (2006), an unconventional examination of transportation policy in the US and the UK, and the forthcoming Place and Plexus (with Kevin Krizek)

Kevin Krizek is associate professor of planning, design, and civil engineering at the University of Colorado. His research and teaching interests include the interactions among land use planning, household travel behavior, and residential location decisions. He is a co-leader of the Access to Destinations Study at the University of Minnesota. Krizek and David Levinson edited Access to Destinations (2005), a collection of papers presented at the first Access to Destinations conference, and co-authored the forthcoming Place and Plexus.

Kay Axhausen is a professor in the Institute for Transport Planning and Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. His research focuses on modeling and simulation of transportation demand and accessibility. Axhausen is co-author of Mobilities, Networks, Geographies (2006), analyzing how technological developments in communication and transportation are affecting the ways people connect with others and satisfy their physical needs.

Robert Bruegmann is professor of art history, architecture, and urban planning at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A historian and critic of the built environment, he is the author of numerous books and articles on architectural history and the development of urban form. His most recent work is Sprawl: A Compact History (2005), offering a provocative historical and policy perspective on the growth of urban and suburban environments.

Hong K. Lo is professor of civil engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include deployment analysis of intelligent transportation systems, the design and management of transportation networks, public transportation service, and congestion mitigation. Lo is Asia/Pacific editor of the Journal of Land Use and Transport, associate editor of the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems and Transportmetrica, and serves on the editorial boards of several other transportation and planning publications.

Anne Canby is president of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, a national nonprofit advocacy coalition for transportation reform. Her career has included leading positions in several state and federal transportation agencies. As leader of two state transportation agencies, Canby gained a reputation as an innovative and progressive planner and administrator. A two-time member of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board, Canby has received numerous honors from transportation and planning organizations

Samuel Seskin is transportation planning director in the Portland, Oregon office of CH2M HILL, a global leader in engineering consulting, construction, and operations. Recognized as a national leader in innovative transportation planning, he consults widely on relationships between transportation, land use, and economics, in addition to serving as a member of the TRB Committee on Transportation and Land Development, and the editorial advisory board of the international journal Transportation.