The Influence of Urban Form on Travel: An Interpretive Review

Can neighborhood design improve traffic? Although a fair question in its own right, several influential planning strategies, including “the new urbanism,”“smart growth,” and the “livability agenda” take the answer more or less for granted. But what do we really know, and how can we improve our knowledge on this key issue? The article first proposes a scheme for categorizing research addressing these and related questions. It then presents a detailed discussion of key studies of urban form and travel behavior. The research strategies employed and the data, methods, and results of these studies are evaluated in detail. The article concludes that although this body of research is improving in several respects and should be encouraged by policy makers and scholars alike, our current understanding of this complex group of relationships remains tentative. The basis for using land use and urban design to selectively change travel behavior thus appears limited in the near term, whereas research opportunities abound.