WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MOBILITY-INCLINED MARKET SEGMENTS FACE ACCESSIBILITY-ENHANCING POLICIES

Improvements in accessibility are increasingly suggested as strategies leading to a reduction in vehicular travel, congestion, pollution and their related impacts. This approach assumes that individuals, if off ered an opportunity, are likely to reduce their travel. It also assume s that accessibility-enhancing land-use changes will increase transit and non-motorized trips in lieu of automobile usage. However, there ar e numerous indications that people engage in excess travel and are not necessarily inclined to reduce it. This paper presents a number of hy potheses on the reasons for excess travel and the relationships among attitudes toward travel and responses to accessibility-enhancing strat egies. It suggests that different market segments are likely to respon d to policy measures in different ways. In particular, if a large segm ent of the population prefers mobility over the reduced travel offered by accessibility improvements, then such policies will be less effect ive than anticipated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.