We examine the effects of urban form and public transit supply on the commute mode choices and annual vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) of households living in 114 urban areas in 1990. The probability of driving to work is lower the higher are population centrality and rail miles supplied and the lower is road density. Population centrality, jobs-housing balance, city shape, and road density have a significant effect on annual household VMTs. Although individual elasticities are small absolute values (≤0.10), moving sample households from a city with the characteristics of Atlanta to a city with the characteristics of Boston reduces annual VMTs by 25%. © 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Bento, Cropper, Mobarak, and Vinha combine measures probability of driving to work in cities with some rail of urban form and public transit supply for 114 transit. Population centrality and jobs-housing balance urbanized areas with the 1990 Nationwide Personal have a significant impact on annual household vehicle Transportation Survey to address two questions: (1) miles traveled (VMT), as do city shape, road density, and How do measures of urban form, including city shape, (in rail cities) annual rail route miles supplied. The road density, the spatial distribution of population, and elasticity of VMT with respect to each variable is small, jobs-housing balance affect the annual miles driven and on the order of 0.10-0.20 in absolute value. However, commute mode choices of U.S. households? (2) How changing several measures of form simultaneously can does the supply of public transportation (annual route reduce annual VMT significantly. Moving the sample miles supplied and availability of transit stops) affect households from a city with the characteristics of Atlanta miles driven and commute mode choice?to a city with the characteristics of Boston reduces The authors find that jobs-housing balance, population annual VMT by 25 percent. centrality, and rail miles supplied significantly reduce the This paper-a product of Infrastructure and Environment, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to examine factors affecting travel behavior.

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