Project Summary
California’s climate change legislation, especially Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375, pressures regions to strive for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reductions, in part through planning for more compact development patterns and transit-oriented development (TOD). Our previous research establishes that TOD may, in certain contexts, accelerate residential displacement. However, the VMT impacts of displacement are not well understood, due to the constraints of existing secondary data sources. This exploratory research project tests a new data collection technique that may shed new light on the transportation costs of displacement. Using GPS tracking, we propose to record the travel patterns of San Francisco residents who are involuntarily displaced. Travel will be tracked before, during, and after eviction. For comparison, we will track a small sample of voluntary movers from the same neighborhood. Due to the small size of the sample (no more than 10 respondents) and exploratory nature of the research, we see this as a preliminary study that can form the basis of a larger grant proposal in the future. This seed grant will enable us to test the GPS tracking app, develop and test the respondent recruitment methodology, gain a preliminary understanding of differences in travel patterns, and develop a working relationship with the San Francisco Planning Department, our research partner.
