HOW LOCAL IS MAIN STREET ? AN ANALYSIS OF NONWORK RELATED TRIPS TO FOUR COMMERCIAL STREETS

With increasing concern about global climate change and sustainable development, local shopping in pedestrian friendly environments has been promoted as a strategy to reduce travel distances and increase the use of sustainable transportation modes. The resurgence of central neighborhoods and traditional commercial streets has led to livelier streets. Accordingly, an understanding of the current travel pattern to traditional neighborhoods is important for transportation planners, designers and decision-makers, to help them in designing and promoting commercial settings that can reduce trip distances and encourage sustainable transport. This paper focuses on non-work related trips to four traditional main streets in Montréal, Québec, Canada. We use the Montréal Origin and Destination survey to model each individual trip to the studied streets. Three linear regression models are generated to investigate factors influencing trip length for auto users, transit users and pedestrians and cyclists. Different factors are found to have influences on trip distance for users using different modes. For auto users it is found that neighborhood characteristics, trip purpose and type of destinations have an influence on trip distance. This can be contrasted to pedestrians and cyclists, where the destination has a little influence on distance but personal characteristics are found to be the main determining factor. For transit riders, distance is affected by their accessibility to service, activities at destination and personal characteristics. Findings in this paper can help land use and transportation planners and decision-makers in understanding the factors leading to a reduction of trip distances and attracting more nearby customers to main commercial streets. HOW LOCAL IS MAIN STREET? AN ANALYSIS OF NON-WORK RELATED TRIPS TO FOUR COMMERCIAL STREETS IN MONTRÉAL INTRODUCTION With increasing concern about global climate change and sustainable development, local shopping in pedestrian and cyclist friendly environments has been promoted as a strategy to reduce travel distances and increase the use of more sustainable transportation modes. Traditional neighborhoods are mostly built prior to the surge in automobile use. Accordingly, most trips to commercial streets in these neighborhoods used to come from nearby districts using walking, cycling and transit. With the resurgence of some traditional commercial streets, there is a distinct possibility that revitalized streets might attract users from further away. In addition, these traditional neighborhoods are attracting auto users. Accordingly, an understanding of current travel pattern to traditional main streets is important for transportation planners to help them in designing and promoting these commercial settings in a way that can affect trip distances. The resurgence of commercial streets did attract some businesses that not only cater to local clienteles such as high-end restaurants, nightclubs or boutique stores. This study looks at non-work related trips that were made to four separate traditional commercial streets in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Traditional commercial streets are important in providing services and opportunities for residents as well as having economic potential (1). The main goal of this study is to determine what factors influence the length of trips to a sample of four traditional commercial streets. It is assumed that longer trip distances are less sustainable than shorter ones. The study of non-work related trips is important because many users may have more flexibility in the short-term to change their travel behavior than is the case for work trips (2). Around 60% of all trips being recorded in the Montreal Origin and destination survey were non-work related (3). Of course, the redesign of streets is a long-term process rather than a short-term one. This paper starts with a literature review on local shopping and non-work travel behavior, followed by a description of the study area and research methodology. Analyses of factors influencing travel distance by mode are introduced in the following section. Finally, the paper ends with a conclusion and recommendation section.