Active Travel in Texas: Data for Decision-Making

1. www.travelbehavior.us Active Travel in Texas: Data for Decision-Making 2014 Texas Active Transportation Conference Nancy McGuckin Travel Behavior Analyst

2. www.travelbehavior.us Overview of Today’s Presentation: • Data Needs and Data Sources • Performance Measurement • Trends over time • Response to new programs/infra-structure • Exposure for Safety analysis • Walking and Biking Behavior and Trends • Some thoughts about future efforts

3. www.travelbehavior.us Data Needs to Assess Active Travel:

4. www.travelbehavior.us BikeTexas 2012 Benchmark Study Provides consistent data across the state (35 towns and cities) related to Bicycle and Pedestrian: • Infrastructure • Policies • Funding • Staffing • Mode share (to work) • Education and Advocacy • Safety • Public Health

5. www.travelbehavior.us TX-NHTS: a large-scale population survey which provides data on everyday walking and biking: • Used to estimate the amount of walking and biking for safety analysis and planning across different metro areas and by different groups of people • Characterize the kinds of walk and bike trips people do: purpose, time of day, length, home-based or work-based, etc. • Inform policies and programs related to encouraging walking and biking (such as the Safe Routes to School program) http://nhts.ornl.gov

6. www.travelbehavior.us Design Details of TX-NHTS Sample: • TXDOT purchased 20,000 additional samples • in the 2009 National Household Travel Survey • Single-day travel-diary for each person’s travel, covering 365 days • All trips, all purposes, all modes on an assigned reporting day for all people in the household • Walk and bike activity for ‘last week’ as well as reporting day allows for greater capture of active travel • Special ‘Safe Routes to School’ module obtained children’s usual travel to and from school A snapshot of everyday travel by people in Texas

7. www.travelbehavior.us A trip was defined as any movement from ‘One Address to Another’: Access and egress to transit have to be separately estimated from the transit trip description Trip 7 & 8 Walk the Dog Source: “Walking and Biking in California”, 2012 McGuckin

8. www.travelbehavior.us The Texas add-on was a substantial sample: Note: If access and egress to transit are calculated, many more walks and bicycle trips would be included in heavy transit markets

9. www.travelbehavior.us How can you use the data? • Compare different cities and towns • Tie behavior to design of the built environment • Examine the impacts of demographics • Develop ‘Exposure Rates’ for safety analysis: • Miles of walking • Time spent biking • Target education, programs and policies for vulnerable groups: school children, elderly, new immigrants

10. www.travelbehavior.us Measuring Performance

11. www.travelbehavior.us What caused this dramatic change in walk and bike mode share? “walking trips nearly doubled from 8.4 percent to 16.6 percent of trips”. Did they throw the backing of the state behind some of the proven education campaigns to increase walking and biking, like “Bike to Work Day’ or “Safe Routes to School”? Did the state make massive investments in new infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists in cities and towns across the state? How did they succeed?

12. www.travelbehavior.us Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT) per Capita started to decline in 2004: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of Census Population (Jul 1) and HPMS Historic VM-1 Tables

13. www.travelbehavior.us When Driving Goes Down, everything else goes ‘up’ as a percent: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of TX-NHTS Data Series

14. www.travelbehavior.us Younger people drove fewer miles than older people: 15-19 Source: McGuckin’s analysis of NHTS Data Series, comparing VMT per capita from 1995-2009

15. www.travelbehavior.us Between age groups the mode share may look the same while the per capita rate is quite different (here 20% more): Source: McGuckin’s analysis of 2009 NHTS

16. www.travelbehavior.us In trends analysis the percent mode share and trends in trips per capita can show different patterns: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of NHTS Data Series

17. www.travelbehavior.us In safety analysis exposure rates based on miles or minutes can show different patterns than fatalities per population… Source: McGuckin’s analysis of FARS Data for CA and the 2009 CA-NHTS

18. www.travelbehavior.us Another important measure is the percent of in-active people: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of 2009 NHTS people 16+

19. www.travelbehavior.us Active Travel in Texas http://nhts.ornl.gov

20. www.travelbehavior.us Where does Texas rank among the states? Source: McGuckin’s analysis of 2009 NHTS

21. www.travelbehavior.us ‘New immigrants’ are more likely to report walking everyday, while Hispanics and Asians are the most likely to report zero walks: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of CA-NHTS for 2013 CHCC

22. The TX-NHTS has people’s perceptions of barriers related to infrastructure: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of the 2009 CA-NHTS

23. Compared to other states, a smaller proportion of walk trips in Texas are to ‘walk the dog’...

24. www.travelbehavior.us Myths and Evidence About Active Travel

25. www.travelbehavior.us Myth: Young adults (16-29) are more likely to walk than older people • Walk trip rates drop overall when people reach driving age • Nationwide, people aged 16-29 walk at about the rate of folks 60-64 • Except in denser urban areas Source: McGuckin’s analysis of the 2009 NHTS

26. www.travelbehavior.us People in high density settings walk more than others, but most folks in the US live in lower-density neighborhoods: The City of Ft. Worth averages 721.4 Housing Units/Sq Mile and 3.5 walks per week Source: McGuckin’s analysis of the 2009 NHTS

27. www.travelbehavior.us Source of graphic: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/Walking/index.html

28. www.travelbehavior.us People in Dallas-Ft. Worth are less likely to have close-by destinations they want to travel to: Dallas-Ft. Worth has fewer trips of 1 mile or less (25.7 percent) AND fewer of those trips are by walking and biking than Atlanta, LA, or the nation as a whole: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of the 2009 NHTS

29. www.travelbehavior.us Myth: People used to walk more in the ‘olden’ days While Adults are Reporting More Walks, Children are Reporting Fewer, and a smaller proportion of those are walks to school Source: McGuckin’s analysis of NHTS data series, using adjusted 1995

30. www.travelbehavior.us People walk and ride for a range of reasons: Source: McGuckin’s analysis of CA-NHTS for 2013 CHCC

31. www.travelbehavior.us What does the NHTS tell us about trends in biking in the U.S.? • Nearly half of driving age adults have access to a bicycle • More than half of adults with a bike use it in the summer months* • Since 1990, children are making fewer bike trips, especially to school • As our society ages, the average age of adult cyclists is also getting older • Nearly a quarter of bike trips by 16-30 year olds are commutes, and bike commuters are very loyal to their mode *From BTS National Survey of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Attitudes and Behavior

32. www.travelbehavior.us Myth: The average cyclists is young Evidence: Baby Boomers continue to cycle, and the mean age is older by over ten years than just two decades ago. Aging impacts infrastructure design for cyclists in many of the same ways it does for pedestrians and drivers. Source: McGuckin’s analysis of NHTS Data Series

33. www.travelbehavior.us Myth: Children bicycle more than other age groups Evidence: People from 5 years old to 35 years old bicycle at nearly the same per capita rates This difference (23.0 to 24.5) is within the margin of error Source: McGuckin’s analysis of the 2009 CA-NHTS

34. www.travelbehavior.us Critical Findings and Future Directions

35. www.travelbehavior.us Summery of Critical Findings:Performance Measurement • Mode Share is the traditional measure of • the percent of travel by each major means: • Driving, Transit, Walk, and Bike. • Worked well when all travel was increasing at about the same rate, • BUT when driving started to level off around 2004—and declined during the recession—ALL the other travel modes increased in share. • Think of it as part of the TOOL-BOX for assessing changes in travel

36. www.travelbehavior.us Summary of Critical Findings: Safety Evidence shows that Texans walk less than people in other states: • Therefore using population-based safety statistics results in lower estimates of fatalities • Developing exposure data (based on the amount of walking) brings to light the differences between metro areas and population groups (immigrants, children) • These data can provide information to promote safety to specific populations with greater exposure (lower-income school children, frequent bicyclists, or new immigrants)

37. www.travelbehavior.us Summary of Critical Findings: Health In Texas, 39% of people report no walks at all ‘Last Week’: • Health advocates are interested in increasing active transport—this ties in very well with the goals of safety, livability, and sustainability. • In addition, as people age they are likely to develop travel difficulty. The evidence shows that many older people have difficulty traveling outside the home. Many of those who don’t travel would like to get out more.

38. www.travelbehavior.us Summary of Critical Findings: Livability • Children are especially vulnerable, since fewer of them walk to school, and overall they walk less than they used to • Walking to school is correlated with walking for other purposes and increases active travel by children for all purposes—programs aimed at encouraging children to walk can create a constituency of walkers • The most vulnerable populations—children and older people—can be harbingers of good design and planning in livable communities

39. www.travelbehavior.us Evidence-based planning and policy can make real improvements in people’s lives: • Promote safe and convenient opportunities for physical activity through complete streets and safety improvements • Reduce the carbon footprint of daily travel while also improving air quality and reducing emmissions • Ensure that all people have equal access to affordable transportation (e.g. walking and biking)

40. www.travelbehavior.us Putting it all together: How do the different ways cities plan for bike and pedestrians actually effect people’s daily travel?

41. www.travelbehavior.us With the right data and the right measures… We can find the right road!

42. www.travelbehavior.us Thank You! Get more information at: