Colonia mobility study finds
residents prefer walking

 

A mobility study conducted by two Texas A&M urban planning professors in a colonia near Laredo found that residents often walked, instead of riding bicycles or driving, to their destinations.

"We found, for example, that people walked more for social/recreational purposes, to interact with their neighbors,” said Chanam Lee, an associate professor who performed the research, which was funded by the Southwest Region University Transportation Center in El Cenizo, with assistant professor Cecilia Giusti.

They were joined by Dominique Lord, assistant professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering and associate research scientist with the Texas Transportation Institute's Center for Transportation Safety.

Rather than ride a bike or drive short distances within the colonia, the research team found, residents chose to walk whenever it was practical. This was true even at night, despite the border's reputation as a high-crime area.

Colonias are impoverished, unincorporated and relatively undeveloped villages near population centers along the U.S. – Mexico border.

Part of the walking pattern, said Lee, is culturally representative of the Hispanic community, but it also speaks to the mobility limitations of residents and the lack of utilitarian destinations in the colonia.

"We can promote a better quality of life in traditionally disadvantaged communities by improving the mobility of the people in them," said Dr. Cecilia Giusti, an assistant professor in Texas A&M's Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning who also conducted the research. "But we first must understand how mobility impacts residents."

For more on the colonia research, visit http://tti.tamu.edu/publications

 

- Posted: Jan. 21, 2010-



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Cecilia Giusti


Chanam Lee

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