Evaluating Neighborhood Accessibility: Possibilities and Practicalities

Efforts to improve transportation choices and enhance accessibility at the neighborhood level have been hampered by a lack of practical planning tools. This paper identifies the factors that contribute to accessibility at the neighborhood level and explores different ways that planners can evaluate neighborhood accessibility. A gap between the data needed to describe important accessibility factors and the data readily available to local planning departments points to two complementary strategies: a city-wide approach using available data and geographic information systems to evaluate accessibility for neighborhoods across the city, and a neighborhood-specific approach to building a detailed accessibility database. Examples of both are presented.