Kristine Keeney
Possible GIS Project Topics
1/28/14
Topic #1: Evaluating Neighborhood Accessibility in Everett, MA
Summary
At this initial stage of our Everett field project planning it seems that we may be
looking at the City’s transportation network and its connectivity to points of interest
on both a micro (neighborhood) and macro (regional) level. While many people use
Everett has a means of getting from surrounding areas to Boston, an important
consideration for our group is how people that are actually living in Everett are
traveling to regular destinations. Despite the density of the neighborhoods found in
the northern portion of the City, Everett is a very car-centric place. The dense
neighborhoods and proximity to points of interest (banks, post office, schools,
entertainment, grocery stores) could provide an opportunity to reimagine the
current transportation network and street design to invite more people to choose
alternative modes for short distance trips.
As part of our field project I would like to use GIS analysis to identify which
neighborhoods have a mix of residential and commercial land uses to narrow our
study area. I would then like to explore other variables that may give our team a
better idea of the current availability and quality of transportation services and
amenities in certain neighborhoods. Government resources are inherently limited;
therefore we will need to identify suitable neighborhoods for complete streets
upgrades based on variables found in the literature including land use, density, and
urban form.
Spatial/Geographic Questions
1. Which neighborhoods in Everett contain areas of mixed land uses?
2. Which neighborhoods in Everett have a grocery store within walking
distance (1/4 of a mile)?
I think these are useful questions because they can help determine the suitability
for applying complete streets design concepts to certain routes within a
neighborhood in order to encourage active transportation to desired
destinations.
References
1. Krizek, K. J. (2003). Operationalizing neighborhood accessibility for land usetravel behavior research and regional modeling. Journal of Planning
Education and Research, 22(3), 270-287.
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Kristine Keeney
Possible GIS Project Topics
1/28/14
There is a decent body of literature regarding neighborhood accessibility
within the planning field. Krizek attempts to synthesize the different
variables suggested by the literature and boil them down to three “tenets” of
neighborhood accessibility: density, land use mix, and street/design. These
principles can help to focus the scope of a project related to neighborhood
accessibility in Everett. It also suggests using a 150-meter grid cells in order
to achieve better pedestrian-scale resolution within the analysis. U.S. Census
TIGER files were specifically mentioned as a data source.
2. Handy, S. L., & Clifton, K. J. (2001). Evaluating neighborhood accessibility:
Possibilities and practicalities. Journal of Transportation and
Statistics, 4(2/3), 67-78.
This source took a look at variables related to quality of transportation
services (walk time to stop, average wait times) to evaluate neighborhood
(local) accessibility. It also considered network accessibility; taking into
account a list of destinations, transit routes connecting residential areas to
desired destinations, and the total travel time between neighborhoods and
destinations. This piece of literature may prove useful for our field project as
the client also wants us to evaluate the current transportation network as a
whole and not just between neighborhoods and local destinations. The
author also suggests taking into account amenities such as benches, shelters,
lighting, and other factors including speed of passing traffic and crime levels.
3. Aultman-Hall, L., Roorda, M., & Baetz, B. W. (1997). Using GIS for evaluation
of neighborhood pedestrian accessibility. Journal of Urban Planning and
Development, 123(1), 10-17.
This source will help to inform the project because it provides a detailed
description of the methods used in order to calculate the shortest walking
distance from individual residences to neighborhood destinations like the
nearest school, open space, and transit stop. This piece of literature also used
the results of the GIS analysis to evaluate the walking accessibility of three
different residential design layouts, which may be useful in our field project if
we are comparing design options.
4. Lei, T., & Church, R. (2010). Mapping transit‐based access: Integrating GIS,
routes and schedules. International Journal of Geographical Information
Science, 24(2), 283-304.
Lei and Church’s article will help to inform the transit portion of the
neighborhood accessibility analysis by providing a framework through which
to evaluate transit access using routing and timetable data to determine
travel time between beginning and end points.
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Kristine Keeney
Possible GIS Project Topics
1/28/14
5. Iacono, M., Krizek, K. J., & El-Geneidy, A. (2010). Measuring non-motorized
accessibility: Issues, alternatives, and execution. Journal of Transport
Geography, 18(1), 133-140.
This source contains an interesting table titled “Unique issues indicative to
measuring non-motorized accessibility and proposed solutions;” which tries
to highlight common issues in data availability related to trip purposes, land
use, travel network, and walking and bicycle activities. The table also
provides solutions or workarounds to working with available data to conduct
effective analysis of alternative transportation accessibility.
6. Rajamani, J., Bhat, C. R., Handy, S., Knaap, G., & Song, Y. (2003). Assessing
impact of urban form measures on nonwork trip mode choice after
controlling for demographic and level-of-service effects. Transportation
Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1831(1), 158165.
This source is unique among the others due to the fact that it addresses mode
choice and urban form in terms of non-work trips. While commuting is both
central to peoples’ daily lives, as part of our field project we plan to look at
local trips within Everett that will catch some commuting trips but will also
include errands and weekend leisure trips as well. This work also
acknowledges that there is significantly less data available about non-work
trips, particularly in the case of the U.S. Census.
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