Environmental Characteristics of Smart Growth Neighborhoods

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Chapter 4
EVALUATION OF TRAVEL BEHAVIOR

The most appropriate method for evaluating the sites' travel behavior would have been a household travel diary survey, but this approach was unavailable due to resource limitations. The evaluation was further limited by a relatively old (1991) regional travel survey whose averages would be compared against individual site data. Given these constraints, the three sites were evaluated as follows:

• Metro Square. A survey questionnaire was mailed to all Metro Square households to obtain the residents' best estimates of their travel behavior. In addition to their current travel at Metro Square, they were also asked to describe their travel characteristics at their last residence before moving to Metro Square. The results of this questionnaire are detailed in Appendix B.
  
  
• Natomas. Using the generous assumption that Natomas' suburban location roughly approximates the region's suburban-dominated travel patterns, the 1991 average regional travel characteristics were used as a surrogate for Natomas household travel demands since site-specific data for Natomas were unavailable.
  
  
• Antelope. Household travel diary data specific to the Antelope subdivision were extracted from the 1991 regional survey for the traffic analysis zone (TAZ) that encompassed the Antelope site.

Table 5 compares the Metro Square survey results against the 1991 regional averages as a surrogate for Natomas, and Table 6 compares the Metro Square results against the 1991 travel diaries completed by Antelope households. In both comparisons, the estimate of Metro Square's total miles driven per capita is based on the 1991 data for its surrounding TAZ, since the resident questionnaire results were not sufficiently detailed to provide such an estimate.

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