National Center for Sustainable Transportation

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation poses a significant challenge in the exurban fringe and rural communities. Populations living in these areas rely more heavily on personal vehicle travel than nonrural populations and are more likely to experience mobility challenges. One approach to curtailing these emissions is building more compact development or smart growth. However, nearly all research to date on travel and the built environment has focused on urban and suburban areas, leaving decision-makers in exurban and rural communities with little guidance for how to effectively reduce GHGs in their communities. To address this gap, travel behavior data from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey is combined with detailed built environment data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Location Database to evaluate the relationships between personal and built environment factors and sustainable travel behaviors including vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and mode choice. The relationship between travel and the built environment is distinct in rural and urban areas. Notably, while in both urban and rural areas increased regional accessibility is associated with lower VMT, it is associated with increased motorized travel reliance and decreased utilitarian active travel in rural areas. Transportation planners and researchers should take note of the differing relationship of the built environment and travel between urban and rural areas. This research suggests that relationships between travel and the built environment observed in prior research conducted in urban areas may not hold in rural contexts. 

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