Using Suitability and Proximity Analysis to Discover Houston's Accessibility via Roadways and Public Transportation

Abstract

Houston is one of the fastest growing metropolis’ in the country. Driving this growth is the oil and gas industry and also the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center. With such growth comes various problems. One of the leading problems according to its citizens in 2014 was traffic and the lack of access to public transportation. This project aims to help find solutions to this problem by locating areas that could help improve public transportation access and take a look at Houston’s accessibility via roadways. Using datasets from various Houston agencies such as the City of Houston and the Houston-Galveston Area Council, overlay analysis was used to help find prime areas that could be improved. Using ESRI ArcMap, models were completed in order to automate the analysis process. Tools such as raster conversion, Euclidean distance, zonal stats as table, and reclassify were used. In order to analyze Houston accessibility via the roadways, ArcGIS Online was used. Several Proximity analyses were run in order to view various types of dating dealing with the accessibility of Houston using roadways. The results show areas that do not currently have access to public transportation and areas that would be suitable locations for improvements based on different criteria. For roadway access, the results show average commute times, drive-time accessibility, and freeway access. This will allow for the accessibility of Houston to be shown whether it is by public transportation or by roadway.