TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOODS AND COMMUTING IN THE SAN-FRANCISCO BAY AREA

Neo-traditional designs, proponents argue, reduce dependency on the au tomobile and provide attractive environments for walking, bicycling, a nd transit riding. This paper explores the extent to which this propos ition holds for seven traditional neighborhoods in the San Francisco B ay Area that evolved around early streetcar services. Matched-pair com parisons of modal shares and trip generation rates for work trips are made between these neighborhoods and newer auto-oriented suburbs, cont rolling for the effects of income and, to a lesser extent, existing bu s service levels. Pedestrian/bicycle modal shares and trip rates tende d to be considerably higher, in some cases five time as high, in trans it-oriented than in the paired auto-oriented neighborhood. Transit nei ghborhoods also averaged around 70 more daily transit work trips per 1 ,000 households than auto-oriented neighborhoods, though trip rates va ried considerably among neighborhood pairs. Higher residential densiti es were also found to have a proportionately greater impact on transit commuting in transit-oriented than in auto-oriented neighborhoods. Th e paper concludes that in order to yield significant transportation be nefits, neo-traditional development must be coordinated with larger re gional planning efforts and public policy initiatives to reduce automo bile dependency.