Some Problems with Accessibility Standards: A Comparison of Household Preferences to Standards for Work, Shopping, and School Trips

Abstract

Empirically measured accessibility preferences of a national sample of metropolitan households are compared to three time distance standards recommended by the American Public Health Association and generally accepted within the urban planning profession. Data analyses suggest that accessibility desires are related to actual trip time to work, shopping center, and elementary school and to broader measures of residential satisfaction. However, the commonly accepted maximum time distance standards are in adequate measures of people’s accessibility desires. Preliminary attempts to account for the variation in accessibility desires left unexplained by the standards are made by dividing the total sample into more homogeneous sub-groups, but this approach largely failed. The purpose of this paper is to compare the empirically measured accessibility preferences of a national sample of metropolitan households to three accessibility standards generally accepted within the planning profession.