关键词: 居住空间形态, 通勤方式, 绿色出行, 北京

Abstract:

In all mainstream urban planning theories, such as “smart growth”, “new urbanism” and “traffic-oriented development”, it is believed that small-scale mixed communities with sufficient public transport facilities can help promote the utilization of green travelling modes. However, the actual effects of urban form are still in dispute. Besides, there is little empirical evidence in China. As Chinese cities are facing a sharp rise in the volume of automobiles, transport related problems such as increasing carbon dioxide emission, environmental pollution and traffic congestion are becoming more and more serious, leading to a growing concern about transport demand management. Based on abundant literatures on the relationship between urban form and transport behavior, the article tries to put forward a theoretic framework based on the unique urban development background of China. It adopts geo-referenced residential form data and large-scale commuting behavior survey data in Beijing to investigate the spatial differences of residential form, as well as its impact on residents’ commuting mode choice through GIS analysis and Multi-nominal model. There are several findings generated here: 1) The residential form indicators vary widely across space in the city of Beijing. The first indicator, the scale of blocks, declines from urban center neighborhoods to peripheral neighborhoods. Besides, the average block scale is much larger than other mega cities such as New York and Tokyo. The second indicator representing the intensity of land uses is lower in urban center and exurb, and the peak level appears between Ring 2 and Ring 4. As for the third one, the land-use mix indicator, it is quite low in urban center because most parts of the district is traditional residential zone. This indictor rises in the surrounding areas, and goes down in some outskirt towns where segregated manufactory land uses or residential land uses are located. The differentiation of residential form reflects the change of urban development pattern in the city along with time. 2) Residential form indicators impose significant influences on peoples’ commuting mode choice. The over-sized blocks in suburbs of Beijing do not facilitate walking or bicycling commuting, while high-density land uses could reduce the probability of car travelling, and mixed land use encourages people choose walking for commuting. 3) We also find some socio-economic attributes which are often discussed in western literatures also have significant effects on commuting mode choice in Beijing. Low-income people are more likely to choose green travel modes because of their low affordability of private cars; besides, female, middle and old aged residents also show greater likelihood of choosing green travel modes given their relative disadvantage in terms of mobility. The findings shed some light on urban planning in the aim of encouraging green travel, that is, small scale blocks, compact and mixed land uses are also preferred in the Chinese background.

Key words: residential form, commuting mode, green travel, Beijing