Individual accessibility and distance from major employment centers: An examination using space-time measures

 Distance has often been assumed to be an influence on intraurban accessibility, whether in traditional proximity-based measures of accessibility, or through expectations about distance-minimizing travel behavior and the logic of the monocentric model. This paper examines the importance of distance from major employment centers to individual accessibility in Portland, Oregon, using space-time accessibility measures computed using GIS. The results of this research indicate that distance from these locations has mixed results on individual accessibility. This appears to reflect the importance of time, both the time of day activities are scheduled as well as time constraints, to individual activity patterns. Received: September 2002 / Accepted: January 2003 The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of two anonymous reviewers, whose comments greatly improved the content of this paper