The Impact of Residential Location Dissonance on Drive-Alone Commute Behavior: An Empirical Analysis Using Data from the Fix I-5 Project in Sacramento, California

Although many studies have recognized the important relationship between travel behavior and the built environment, little research has precisely examined the households that encounter a state of mismatch or dissonance between the type of residential neighborhood where they currently live (measured in terms of the physical built environment) and their preferred neighborhood type (measured in terms of attitudes). Using data from 1259 commuters who reside within the Sacramento area and surrounding cities, this research investigates residential neighborhood type dissonance with regard to three dimensions that measure the built environment: transit, density, and walking/bicycling. Through the application of factor analysis to attitudinal variables and built environment measures, residents were classified as being either matched or mismatched in their present urban or suburban neighborhoods. Travel behavior (commuting by driving alone most of the time) was compared across each neighborhood classification, and binary logistic regression was used to analyze the impact of attitudes and the built environment on drive-alone commuting. As an indicator of travel behavior, the binary choice to commute by driving alone was defined as most of the time (1-2 times a week or greater) or seldom to never driving alone (1-3 times a month or less). The results show that more than half of the commuters in the sample are mismatched. The mismatch more often takes the form of "suburbanites" (or people with suburban preferences) living in an urban environment, rather than the converse ("urbanites", or people with urban preferences, living in a suburban environment). In general, residents with preferences for an urban development commute by driving alone less than residents with preferences for a suburban development. Attitudes were also found to be more prominent than the built environment variables in the models. Most of the built environment variables showed low significance for Model 1 while all were insignificant for Model 2. Overall, the results of this research suggest that attitudes are fundamental when examining travel behavior under the influence of residential dissonance within different neighborhoods.