Steven Spears, Assistant Professor, Urban and Regional Planning

February 13, 2015

“Can Public Transportation Investment Change Minds as Well as Behavior? A Look at LA’s Expo Line Light Rail.”

Biosketch

Steven Spears is an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. in Planning, Policy & Design from the University of California, Irvine. His current research examines how built environmental, economic, and psychosocial factors influence travel behavior and travel-related physical activity. He is particularly interested in identifying attitudinal and social leverage points that can be used to promote sustainable travel and increase physical activity.

Abstract

Research into the relationship between land use and travel has identified numerous characteristics of the built environment that encourage the use of transit, walking, and bicycling. However, few travel behavior studies account for psychosocial factors (such as attitudes, perceptions, and social norms) that have been shown to influence travel. Fewer still have examined how these factors affect travel behavior change over time. This talk will focus on results obtained from longitudinal data collected before and after the opening of a new light rail line in Los Angeles. An experimental-control research design was used to compare changes in travel behavior, attitudes and perceptions among residents close to the new line to those in similar neighborhoods further away. Results indicate significant decrease in distance driven among households within 1 kilometer of new stations after the opening of the line. Psychosocial factors, particularly attitudes toward transit, appear to be robust predictors of daily transit use, car trips, walking and bicycling, and evidence points to a causal pathway from transit attitude to the choice of travel mode.