Safely active mobility for urban baby boomers: The role of neighborhood design
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Zegras_Safely active.pdf
Size
1.9 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6f48de73179cdbe411d84747bb0bd834
Author(s)
Lee, Jae Seung
Zegras, Pericles C
Ben-Joseph, Eran
Date Issued
December 2013
Journal
Accident Analysis & Prevention
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Lee, Jae Seung, P. Christopher Zegras, and Eran Ben-Joseph. “Safely Active Mobility for Urban Baby Boomers: The Role of Neighborhood Design.” Accident Analysis & Prevention 61 (2013): 153–166.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Many urban designers and researchers argue that walkable urban environments can encourage older residents’ walking activities that benefit their physical health. However, walking also exposes older adults to safety risks, including due to traffic accidents. This study seeks to reveal the interactions between urban form and safety affecting urban baby boomers’ walking behavior. Spatial analysis reveals traffic collision patterns in urban Boston neighborhoods, detecting hotspots around activity centers. Structural equation modeling, estimated on individual data collected from a mail-back survey and utilizing numerous measures of neighborhood urban form and accessibility, then attempts to reveal the causal, interacting relationships between neighborhood-level urban form, traffic crashes, and baby boomers’ walking behavior. The analysis identifies significant effects of walkable urban forms (e.g., mixed use, well-connected streets, and good access to potential destinations) on older adults’ walking. Yet, accessibility to retail, as well as traffic speed and volume, are positively associated with the traffic collision frequency. The results suggest more cautious approaches may be necessary for designing urban spaces for walkability and also call into question prescriptions based on the “safety in numbers” hypothesis.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2013.05.008
