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What motivates people to walk and bike? It varies by income

Published on January 6, 2016

SDOT, flickr

Lower- and middle-income King County residents who live in denser neighborhoods — with stores, libraries and other destinations within easy reach — are more likely to walk or bike, according to new University of Washington research.

But neighborhood density didn’t motivate higher-income residents to leave their cars at home, the transportation engineers found. Of the environmental factors they studied, the only one that significantly influenced how frequently that group walked or biked was how attractive they found their neighborhoods to be.

 

Dimensions of “attractiveness” that motivated the higher-income group included seeing other people when they walk in their neighborhoods, the attractiveness of buildings and homes and having interesting things to look at.

Read the complete story on UW Today>


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