Taking the bus to the park? - a study of accessibility to green areas in Gothenburg through different modes of transport

Sammanfattning: Green areas in urban environments can have recreational, environmental and health benefits but for them to be utilized, high accessibility for inhabitants is necessary. In an expanding city like Gothenburg, maintaining geographic accessibility to green areas can be challenging. This study performs an accessibility analysis to assess whether Gothenburg has sufficient accessibility to green areas, and whether any spatial inequality occurs. It also aims to compare the accessibility by public transport to other modes of transport: walking, biking and driving car. Earlier research of accessibility analysis to green areas have rarely included network analysis of public transport. For green areas in Gothenburg, no network analysis of any transport mode has previously been performed. This study found that the accessibility is sufficient for most of the population of Gothenburg. Although the accessibility is not evenly distributed, no spatial inequality with regards to income was found. Compared to other transport modes public transport seems to be preferable primarily in relatively long-distance travels.