Active transportation and equitable access to essential urban amenities in Charlotte, NC.

Abstract:

Pandemic and sustainable transportation urban issues have prompted city planning and policymakers to prioritize active mobility for its environmental, economic, and health benefits. Cities aim to provide neighborhoods with varied urban amenities, essentially within 10, 15, and 20-minutes by active transportation means, bicycle, and on foot. The Charlotte City Comprehensive plan 2040 looks to provide each household with access to essential amenities, goods, and services within 10-minute or 2 miles of a bicycle trip. This paper presents a geospatial process to measure accessibility and equity to destinations within 10, 15, and 20 minutes of biking travel time, by categorizing urban amenities in six domains that include education, transport, recreation, food retail, financial, and health. We use a Geography information system (GIS) to implement a network analysis-based Neighborhood Destination Accessibility Index, as well as Lorenz Curves, and Gini Coefficients to assess disparities of this index in Charlotte, NC. The study depicts the spatial variation of average population accessibility to amenities across the city and estimates the population that is poorly served. It also underscores inequities between social groups of interest and ties back to the mismatches in the geographies of population and of urban amenities and the need to better plan the cities for a future that is more in line with Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords: urban issues, planning and policy, Geography information system (GIS), sustainable transportation, geospatial, active transportation.

Authors: