The City is Flatter:Changing Patterns of Job and Labor Access in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, 1995-2005

摘要

This study describes the measurement of accessibility by automobile for the Min-neapolis - Saint Paul (Twin Cities) region over the period from 1995 to 2005. Incontrast to previous analyses of accessibility, this study uses travel time estimates de-rived, to the extent possible, from actual observations of network performance by timeof day. A set of cumulative opportunity measures are computed with transportationanalysis zones (TAZs) as the unit of analysis for 1995 and 2005. Analysis of the changesin accessibility by location over the period of study reveals that, for the majority oflocations in the region, accessibility increased over this period, though the increaseswere not uniform. A "flattening" or convergence of levels of accessibility across loca-tions was observed over time, with faster-growing suburban locations gaining the mostin terms of employment accessibility. An eort to decompose the causes of changesin accessibility into components related to transportation network structure and landuse (opportunity location) reveal that both causes make a contribution to increasingaccessibility, though the effects of changes to the transportation network tend to bemore location-specific. Overall, the results of the study demonstrate the feasibility andrelevance of using accessibility as a key performance measure to describe the regionaltransportation system.