Accessibility, Closeness and Distance: CATA Transportation in State College, PA
Open Access
- Author:
- Mcnally, Alexandra Chaustre
- Area of Honors:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Alexander Klippel, Thesis Supervisor
Roger Michael Downs, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- CATA
transportation
accessibility
close
closeness
distance
public transportation
Pennsylvania
bus
route - Abstract:
- Since the Brundtland Commission released “Our Common Future” in the late 1980s, policy makers have been striving to create strategies that promote sustainable development, or “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (UN Documents, 1987). Public transportation is an aspect of sustainable development that could have significant effects on the environment and human life. The Pennsylvania State University is home to approximately 44,000 undergraduate and graduate students with a fluctuating demand on the public transportation system (U.S. News, 2010). This thesis investigates students’ perceptions of the Centre Area Transportation Authority’s (CATA) bus system and their use of CATA in State College, Pennsylvania. These perceptions could reveal useful information for CATA’s accessibility strategies to make it an attractive solution for travel, thus gaining more public transportation use. This thesis will assess the accessibility and relative closeness of CATA bus stops to participants’ residences and participants’ perceptions of accessibility and closeness of this form of public transportation. Additionally, it will compare the distance judgments between males and females and their perceptions of accessibility. Past research has found significant differences between the judgment of distance by males and females, which potentially is related to the different ways males and females survey the physical world (Coluccia & Girogia, 2004). These findings could support reasons behind their varied public transportation behaviors. The frequency of bus-use will be analyzed based on the distance between participants’ residences and the closest bus stop, their perceptions of this distance and their ratings of accessibility and closeness. This thesis will use research based on individual questionnaires of student participants.