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 Long Island Regional Assessment(Larger image, 984 KB) |
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 How much of the region’s growth has been within walking distance of the commuter rail? As of 2000, 11.2 Million working age persons, only 2.2 million were within walking distance of commuter rail stations. Since 1980, there has been an increase of 246,000 additional working age persons within walking distance however, there has been 1.5 million additional working age persons living beyond walking distance to rail stations.
Healthy Communities Regional Assessment Interim Report [PDF, 469 KB] | |
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Preliminary Findings How much of the region’s growth has been within walking distance of the commuter rail? In answer to this question, all of the commuter lines were mapped and a 1/3 mile radius buffer was created around each station. The preliminary findings show good news and bad. The good news is that the emptying out of the cities that is so dramatically shown in the 1970-1980 bracket is being reversed. In fact, between 1990 and 2000, the region added roughly the same percentages of working-age people within walking distance and beyond walking distance of train stations. The bad news is that in absolute terms this still means that since 1990, 152,000 workers have moved within walking distance while 571,000 people moved to places beyond - the unrelenting trend of sprawl development. As of 2000, 11.2 million working age persons, only 2.2 million were within walking distance of commuter rail stations. What about walking to bus lines? Because the bus lines have changed over the decades, it is not possible to do a decade-by-decade comparison as was done for commuter rail. But, the results of the 2000 analysis are interesting. Here a contiguous buffer 1/3 mile wide on either side of the bus route was created. Figure ______ shows some interesting results for New York City and the region. Not surprisingly, the highest density areas (10,000 or more people per square mile) are well served by buses, and the lowest density areas (3,000 or less people per square mile) are not. But what the bar chart reveals is that there are numerous places with densities that should support transit, but where there is no service. These are target areas for further analysis and advocacy with transit providers to find out why bus service is not provided now and what it would take to promote it. These findings suggest a rich agenda for further research and advocacy. If certain stations have added population, but there has been no increase in ridership, what is the reason? Are there local physical design features that are inhibiting walking, and can these be addressed? Greenway Access to Schools and Transit To determine this we buffered ¼ mile of all the greenways and then calculated the population living within greenways and beyond the greenway access areas. As table above reveals, overall about 24% of the region’s population is within ¼ mile distance of a green way. Can these be used by school aged children to get to school? We identified how many school-aged children within two miles of a schools were also within ¼ mile of a greenway connection to a school. Of the 2 million school-aged children, less than 200,000 could use greenways to get to school, assuming other factors such as safety and design are addressed. What about using greenways to get to work? For this, a similar exercise was undertaken for working age population within five miles of a train station who were also within 1/4 mile of a greenway that linked to a commuter rail station. As the chart reveals, 19 of 31 counties had stations that connect to greenways, and about 1 million of the region’s workers could use these greenway resources to bike to stations, again assuming other issues such as safety and design are addressed.  Finally, how are resources for greenways allocated? We reviewed funding criteria for each of the three states to see to what extent greenway funding was linked to regional mobility goals for alternatives to the automobile. All three states have policy statements to this effect, but only New Jersey had over $40 million in Transportation Improvements from (2000-2004 years reviewed) is the most rigorous in terms of requiring that a greenway be part of a larger mobility strategy, where greenways that connect to other transportation resources are favored. We mapped, by county, where the funding is going and overlapped this information with the potential greenway population mapping which derived from the access to schools access to transit mapping described above. RPA compiled transportation data from regional planning groups TIPs from 2000-2004. These maps have significant advocacy value as they illustrate opportunities to capture new greenway users based both on proximity and density and also illustrate how funding could be directed to places with the most potential for new uses. Other analysis opportunities include overlaying all of this regional assessment mapping (commuter rail access, bus access, greenway access) with the sprawl and health research released by Smart Growth America. Is there a correlation between access to the resources and sprawl as defined by Smart Growth America? Are the places with more access to these resources healthier in terms of heart disease and hypertension? |
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