Local street design and transit accessibility: Access to mainline public transportation in Bangkok neighborhoods.

This dissertation explores into people's dependence on neighborhood transit services of the informal sector in their key role that connect between people's residences inside the local street network and mainline transit services on the main road. The study argues that such dependence is influenced by the physical characteristics of the local street network, and thus can be reduced by altering the local street characteristics to facilitate walking as an alternative means of travel for transit access trips. Two local-street characteristics are considered, trip distance and pedestrian route directness (the ratio of trip distance on the existing network and straight-line distance). To investigate the relationships, a nested logit model is estimated using the 2003 Bangkok Travel Survey dataset. The model results indicate that trip distance negatively impacts pedestrian travel the most at a statistically significant level. Therefore, policies to reduce transit access trip distance are likely to increase the likelihood of walking, as opposed to using neighborhood transit services. In addition, pedestrian route directness is used to determine appropriate policy directions and target areas to improve transit accessibility. Two types of policies are suggested. The first involves retrofitting local streets to achieve more direct pedestrian routes in areas where excessive trip distances are created because of route indirectness. The second type of policies includes introducing or upgrading existing local streets into distributor roads and expanding of transit services into these areas. Policy simulations in target areas show significant reduction of informal transport uses. The study therefore concludes that dependence on neighborhood transit services for transit access trips can be reduced, by appropriately altering street designs in the local-street network to promote pedestrian accessibility to transit services.Ph.D.Social SciencesTransportationUrban planningUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125980/2/3224836.pd