Combining neighborhood and route level features to measure walkability: a study of transit stationwalking sheds

Existing research on walkability and the built environment has examined how different variables affect pedestrian travel, yet few scholars have been able to quantify a direct link between how built environment conditions in a geographic area affect travel at a route level. This paper presents a methodology to examine how these two aspects of walkability interact. Several basic characteristics of the built environment were assigned quantitative values representing their appeal or impedance to travel, and travel was modeled along routes from origin blocks to regional rail transit stations, using a geographic information system. Some of the key findings of this work were that network layouts result in high concentrations of pedestrian travel on a few number of major roads, and that the conditions along these roads had a negative impact on travel experience due to high levels of pedestrian travel and poor environmental quality. It was also found that the distribution of population within the walking shed is a more useful metric than simply the area of the walking shed. The relationship between this method and actual walking rates has not yet been validated against observed pedestrian counts, but even so, it provides a useful way to examine the potential walking experience to transit stations. It also has other potential applications in examining walkability conditions to other destinations, or for other specific user groups.