Urban Form Lab Archives - Page 10 of 10

Light Rail Leads to More Walking Around Station Areas

Huang, Ruizhu; Moudon, Anne V.; Zhou, Chuan; Stewart, Orion T.; Saelens, Brian E. (2017). Light Rail Leads to More Walking Around Station Areas. Journal Of Transport & Health, 6, 201 – 208.

View Publication

Abstract

Areas around Light Rail Transit (LRT) stations offer ideal conditions for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Relatively dense, mixed-use neighborhoods can have positive impacts on mobility, health, and perceptions of neighborhood safety among nearby residents, primarily through walking activity for both transit and other purposes. To examine how station areas may attract new activity, this study analyzed changes in walking around station areas among people living close to an LRT station before and after the opening of a new transit system. This study examined walking behavior among the subset of 214 participants living within one mile of one of 13 LRT stations from among a sample of residents living close or further away from a new LRT line in Seattle. They completed a survey and a travel log and wore an accelerometer and a GPS for 7 days both before (2008) and after the opening of the Seattle area LRT (2010). Walking bouts were derived using a previously developed algorithm. The main outcome was the individual-level change in the proportion of daily walking within one quarter Euclidean mile of an LRT station. Overall walking decreased from before to after the LRT opening while station area walking did not change significantly, indicating a shift in walking activity to the station areas after the introduction of LRT. Increases in the proportion of station area walking were negatively related to participants' distance between home and the nearest LRT station, peaking at .0.75 mile. Male gender, college education, normal weight status, less access to cars, and frequent LRT use were also significantly associated with greater positive changes in the proportion of station area walking. The shift in walking to station areas after the completion of light rail provides evidence that the local proximate population is attracted to station areas, which may potentially benefit both transit use and TOD area economic activity. The residential catchment area for the shift in LRT area walking was < 0.75 mile of the LRT stations. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Keywords

Body-mass Index; Physical-activity; Built Environment; Travel Behavior; Transit; Stop; Transit Oriented Development (tod); Behavior Change; Global Positioning Systems; Geographic Information Systems

Beyond the Bus Stop: Where Transit Users Walk

Eisenberg-Guyot, Jerzy; Moudon, Anne V.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Mooney, Stephen J.; Whitlock, Kathryn B.; Saelens, Brian E. (2019). Beyond the Bus Stop: Where Transit Users Walk. Journal Of Transport & Health, 14.

View Publication

Abstract

Objectives: Extending the health benefits of public-transit investment requires understanding how transit use affects pedestrian activity, including pedestrian activity not directly temporally or spatially related to transit use. In this study, we identified where transit users walked on transit days compared with non-transit days within and beyond 400 m and 800 m buffers surrounding their home and work addresses. Methods: We used data collected from 2008 to 2013 in King County, Washington, from 221 non-physically-disabled adult transit users, who were equipped with an accelerometer, global positioning system (GPS), and travel diary. We assigned walking activity to the following buffer locations: less than and at least 400 m or 800 m from home, work, or home/work (the home and work buffers comprised the latter buffer). We used Poisson generalized estimating equations to estimate differences in minutes per day of total walking and minutes per day of non-transit-related walking on transit days compared with non-transit days in each location. Results: We found that durations of total walking and non-transit-related walking were greater on transit days than on non-transit days in all locations studied. When considering the home neighborhood in isolation, most of the greater duration of walking occurred beyond the home neighborhood at both 400 m and 800 m; results were similar when considering the work neighborhood in isolation. When considering the neighborhoods jointly (i.e., by using the home/work buffer), at 400 m, most of the greater duration of walking occurred beyond the home/work neighborhood. However, at 800 m, most of the greater duration of walking occurred within the home/work neighborhood. Conclusions: Transit days were associated with greater durations of total walking and non-transit related walking within and beyond the home and work neighborhoods. Accordingly, research, design, and policy strategies focused on transit use and pedestrian activity should consider locations outside the home and work neighborhoods, in addition to locations within them.

Keywords

Physical-activity; Public-transit; Accelerometer Data; Combining Gps; United-states; Travel; Transportation; Health; Time; Neighborhood

Does the Built Environment Have Independent Obesogenic Power? Urban Form and Trajectories of Weight Gain

Buszkiewicz, James H.; Bobb, Jennifer F.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Arterburn, David; Moudon, Anne Vernez; Cook, Andrea; Mooney, Stephen J.; Cruz, Maricela; Gupta, Shilpi; Lozano, Paula; Rosenberg, Dori E.; Theis, Mary Kay; Anau, Jane; Drewnowski, Adam. (2021). Does the Built Environment Have Independent Obesogenic Power? Urban Form and Trajectories of Weight Gain. International Journal Of Obesity, 45(9), 1914 – 1924.

View Publication

Abstract

Objective To determine whether selected features of the built environment can predict weight gain in a large longitudinal cohort of adults. Methods Weight trajectories over a 5-year period were obtained from electronic health records for 115,260 insured patients aged 18-64 years in the Kaiser Permanente Washington health care system. Home addresses were geocoded using ArcGIS. Built environment variables were population, residential unit, and road intersection densities captured using Euclidean-based SmartMaps at 800-m buffers. Counts of area supermarkets and fast food restaurants were obtained using network-based SmartMaps at 1600, and 5000-m buffers. Property values were a measure of socioeconomic status. Linear mixed effects models tested whether built environment variables at baseline were associated with long-term weight gain, adjusting for sex, age, race/ethnicity, Medicaid insurance, body weight, and residential property values. Results Built environment variables at baseline were associated with differences in baseline obesity prevalence and body mass index but had limited impact on weight trajectories. Mean weight gain for the full cohort was 0.06 kg at 1 year (95% CI: 0.03, 0.10); 0.64 kg at 3 years (95% CI: 0.59, 0.68), and 0.95 kg at 5 years (95% CI: 0.90, 1.00). In adjusted regression models, the top tertile of density metrics and frequency counts were associated with lower weight gain at 5-years follow-up compared to the bottom tertiles, though the mean differences in weight change for each follow-up year (1, 3, and 5) did not exceed 0.5 kg. Conclusions Built environment variables that were associated with higher obesity prevalence at baseline had limited independent obesogenic power with respect to weight gain over time. Residential unit density had the strongest negative association with weight gain. Future work on the influence of built environment variables on health should also examine social context, including residential segregation and residential mobility.

Keywords

Body-mass Index; Physical-activity; Food Environment; Structural Racism; Obesity; Neighborhoods; Associations; Health; Walkability; Exposure; Environment Models; Minority & Ethnic Groups; Urban Environments; Regression Analysis; Regression Models; Residential Density; Body Mass Index; Property Values; Body Weight Gain; Government Programs; Body Weight; Electronic Medical Records; Electronic Health Records; Fast Food; Buffers; Real Estate; Body Mass; Body Size; Socioeconomics; Health Care

Urban Form Lab

The Urban Form Lab (UFL) research aims to affect policy and to support approaches to the design and planning of more livable environments. The UFL specializes in geospatial analyses of the built environment using multiple micro-scale data in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Current research includes the development of novel GIS routines for performing spatial inventories and analyses of the built environment, and of spatially explicit sampling techniques. Projects address such topics as land monitoring, neighborhood and street design, active transportation, non-motorized transportation safety, physical activity, and access to food environments.

Research at the UFL has been supported by the U.S. and Washington State Departments of Transportation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and local agencies.

The Urban Form Lab is directed by Anne Vernez Moudon, Dr es Sc, a leading researcher and educator in quantifying the properties of the built environment as related to health and transportation behaviors. Philip M. Hurvitz, PhD, a veteran of geographic information science and data processing, leads data management and GIS work.

Urban@UW helps BE labs collaborate

The Urban@UW initiative brings together labs that study urban issues from across the University of Washington. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders in order to strengthen the connection between research and solutions to urban issues through cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative research. Key functions of Urban@UW include amplifying public awareness of ongoing projects, connecting researchers with outside constituencies, providing staff and administrative support services, and providing pilot funding and fundraising assistance. Multiple BE labs are involved, including the Northwest…

New UW Data Collaborative connects BE researchers with restricted data

The University of Washington Data Collaborative (UWDC) is now offering services to researchers across campus, including BE researchers Gregg Colburn at the Runstad Department of Real Estate and the Urban Form Lab. Housed at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology, UWDC provides infrastructure to access restricted data in a secure and sophisticated computing environment. Data sets available to researchers cover health records, polling data, business and consumer data, and real estate data. Researchers interested in accessing these data…

Anne Vernez-Moudon

Anne Vernez Moudon is Professor Emerita of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is President of the International Seminar on Urban Morphology (ISUF), an international and interdisciplinary organization of scholars and practitioners; a Faculty Associate at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in Cambridge, MA; a Fellow of the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.; and a National Advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program on Active Living Policy and Environmental Studies.

Dr. Moudon holds a B.Arch. (Honors) from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Doctor ès Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her work focuses on urban form analysis, land monitoring, neighborhood and street design, and non-motorized transportation. Her current research is supported by the U.S. and Washington State departments of Transportation, the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Her published works include Built for Change: Neighborhood Architecture in San Francisco (MIT Press 1986), Public Streets for Public Use (Columbia University Press 1991), and Monitoring Land Supply with Geographic Information Systems (with M. Hubner, John Wiley & Sons, 2000). She also published several monographs, such as Master-Planned Communities: Shaping Exurbs in the 1990 ( with B. Wiseman and K.J. Kim, distributed by the APA Bookstore, 1992) and Urban Design: Reshaping Our Cities (with W. Attoe, University of Washington, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1995).

Dr. Moudon has been an active participant in The Mayors’ Institute on City Design since 1992. She has consulted for many communities nationally and internationally to develop urban design guidelines for new construction which respect the character of the existing landscape and built environment and which support non-motorized transportation. She has worked with planning officials, design professionals, and neighborhood groups in the Puget Sound as well as in San Francisco, CA, Toronto and Montreal, Canada, Stockholm, Sweden, among others. She taught courses and conducted seminars in urban design, planning, and housing in Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

Philip Hurvitz

Phil Hurvitz is a research scientist with a primary appointment in the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, and is an Affiliate Associate Professor in Urban Design & Planning in the University of Washington College of Built Environments Urban Form Lab. He received his PhD in 2010, and has been on the faculty since 2012. He specializes in the objective measurement and analysis of the built environment using GIScience methodology. His current research investigates the relationship between health-related behaviors and built environment at fine spatial and temporal scales. Using new-generation devices that measure activity and location in real time, the data are being used to find associations between the types of activities people engage in and the types of environments people use as they go about their daily lives. He collaborates with researchers specializing in nutritional epidemiology, exercise physiology, rehabilitation medicine, and psychology for the purpose of understanding the relationships between built environment, diet, and physical activity. Phil received a Master of Forest Resources degree in 1994 at the UW College of Forest Resources where he helped develop and implement a GIS for the Makah Indian Nation. His Bachelor’s degree (1983) is from Seattle University in Humanities. Prior to his current appointment, he worked as a GIS specialist for the College of Forest Resources, the City of SeaTac, the Seattle Water Department, and an instructor at the University of Washington and Green River Community College.