Investigating the Role of Built Environment and Lifestyle Choices in Active Travel for Weekly Home-Based Nonwork Trips

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of the built environment and individual lifestyle choices on weekly frequency of active transportation (AT) for home-based nonwork trips in the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. The growing trend of auto-oriented lifestyle choices and dependency not only intensifies environmental emissions and energy use but leads to decreased AT use for daily activities. Studies show that the built environment plays a significant role in active mode choice for nonwork trips, which are more flexible in time and location. However, research investigating the effect of lifestyle and attitudes combined with built-environment attributes for AT use has been limited, particularly for weeklong nonwork trips. Accordingly, this study investigated weekly active travel for nonwork trips on the basis of data from the Halifax Household Mobility and Travel Survey. Factor analysis captured the effects of lifestyle choices and attitudes, which were categorized by individuals' attitudes toward (a) travel modes and (b) land use and the environment. From loading the factors of the lifestyle choice variables, nine attitudinal variables were obtained. The study employed an ordered probit modeling framework to examine relative contributions of relevant socioeconomic characteristics, built-environment attributes, and attitudinal factors. Model results revealed that attitudes and factors of lifestyle choice played important roles in weekly AT frequency for nonwork trips. For example, individuals with prowalk–probike and protransit attitudes were likely to use AT more frequently for non-work-related trips than their counterparts. Although the impact of individuals' attitudes on AT trips was evident, this model also demonstrated that the built environment significantly influences the frequency of AT trips.