Ex-Urban Sprawl as a Factor in Traffic Fatalities and EMS Response Times in the Southeastern United States

摘要

Many different writers (Atkinson and Oleson 1996; Barnett 1995; Burchell and Lisotkin 1995; Burchell et al., 1998; Carruthers and Ulfarsson 2002; Ciscel 2001; Ewing 1997; and Glaeser and Kahn 2003) have examined the direct and indirect costs of unplanned growth or sprawl. However, an area only recently examined is the impact of sprawl on traffic fatalities (Ewing, Schieber and Zegeer, 2003; Lucy 2003; and Lucy 2000). Besides a case study of the Chicago area, which found emergency medical services (EMS) delays due to sprawl (American Farmland Trust 1998), another issue not examined on a larger scale is the degree to which sprawl might be contributing to delays in EMS. In this research note, we develop models similar to the ones used by Reid Ewing, Richard Schieber and Charles Zegeer (2003), Stefan Felder and Henrik Brinkmann (2002) and Theodore Keeler (1994) in order to assess the impact that the built environment has on EMS response times and the rate of traffic fatalities in the southeastern United States.