Citation

Whitfield GP, Wendel AM, Auchincloss AH. Prev. Chronic Dis. 2016; 13: E123.

Affiliation

Drexel University School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, (in public domain), Publisher U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

DOI

10.5888/pcd13.160097

PMID

27609301

Abstract

We conducted an ecological study to determine whether parking prices are associated with active commuting across US cities. We obtained parking prices for 107 US cities from the Drexel University Central Business District Public Parking Survey, obtained city prevalence of walking and bicycling to work from the American Community Survey, and used weighted least squares linear regression to explore associations between parking prices and active commuting. After adjusting for several covariates, walking to work was 3.1% higher for every additional dollar charged for off-street daily parking, but only among more densely populated cities, and no such association was detected for bicycling to work. These preliminary results hint at the potential for parking policies to influence commuting mode choice, a link that city planners and public health officials could consider when evaluating parking policies and active transportation behaviors.

Language: en