Impacts of the King Street Priority Corridor on Environmental Perceptions: Gender, Mobility and Safety

In Toronto Ontario, infrastructure changes were implemented to improve public streetcar use within the King Street Transit corridor. There exists a link between how people perceive the environment and their travel behaviour. This research focuses on changes to perceived safety, the environment and if changes were perceived differently by each gender. Intercepted travellers, residents and local employees (n=548) completed a survey about environmental perceptions and travel behaviours. Binary logistic regression analyses examined the effect of multiple factors on gender and safety, and full multi-variate logistic regression was conducted to identify key measures of perceptions. Gender did not have an association with perceived safety or environmental factors. There were several significant relationships (CI=95%, p=0.0001) between environmental perceptions and mobility. The logistic multivariate analysis for safety and built environment, included rated air quality, noise levels, transit system rating, car ownership, and the likelihood of walking to work as positive predictors of mobility.