Examining factors that keep residents with high transit preference away from transit-rich zones and associated behavior outcomes

Abstract

Many studies on travel-induced residential self-selection assume that travel attitudes are strong enough to influence people's residential decisions. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this article investigates the impacts of preference for transit and other residential preferences on residential location choice. Employing preference ranking, logistic regression and ANOVA tests on survey data from the Oslo metropolitan area, we find that individuals with simultaneously high preference for transit and low preference for attributes related to households with children are likely to reside in transit-friendly neighborhoods. Transit preference, while important in residential choice, is more so as second tier after other more important preferences related to lifecycle/demographics are satisfied. Individuals who prefer transit but live in transit-poor zones tend to have higher preference for private garden, a larger number of children, lower income, and are older. Variations in access to transit and transit preference have significant influences on transit use. The results of qualitative interviews are also consistent with these findings and substantiate the mechanism by which the built environment and travel preference affect residential and travel choices.