Accessibility to urban services: influence on pedestrian users of public transit

Several studies in the last two decades have investigated the role of built environment on walking. Studies that investigated the role of built environment on walking to transit analyzed the role of various destinations in proximity to the stations. However, few studies have investigated the role of these destinations on walking trip generation at the origin of the trip. Moreover, none of these studies have investigated the role of availability of public services on walking to transit. This study identifies the urban services at the origin of walking trips of the tri-rail commuters in the West Palm, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties of South Florida. The number of pedestrian users of tri-rail stations and the available urban service were aggregated per Traffic Analysis Zones and analyzed using standard Poisson regression. Findings indicate that availability of urban services such as public education and public recreation have a positive effect on walking to commuter-rail. Implications of this study include the identification and development of Capital Improvement Projects such as libraries to be located in close proximity to schools and colleges. New and proposed train stations should be located in proximity to urban services such as school, colleges, and libraries to encourage pedestrian users.