Assistant Professor

Ph.D. ,City and Regional Planning
  University of California, Berkeley.
MCP UC Berkeley
MS UC Berkeley
AB Harvard

Office: 317 New East
Phone: 919-962-4781
Fax: 919-962-5206
Email: noreen@unc.edu




Expertise
Transportation policy, school travel, physical activity, transportation and land use, school transportation,
school siting


Course
• PLAN  720  (130)  Planning Methods

(Red course numbers relate to UNC’s former course numbering system)


Research and Practice
Dr. McDonald studies how the environment influences travel behavior, particularly for children.  Her current
research looks at how the social environment as well as the built environment affects travel behavior,
particularly where children are allowed to walk within their communities.  Before coming to UNC in the Fall
of 2007, Noreen was a faculty member at the University of Virginia.


Recent and current projects include
• Changes in children's school travel from 1969 to 2001 for the United States: Documentation and explanation
  of the decline in walking to school and analysis of variation by race and gender

• Study of the impact of crime on walking in Oakland, California

• Survey of parents and children in California to understand how the built and social environments affect
  where children are allowed to travel

• Analysis of school siting and school transportation policies


Publications
• McDonald, N. 2007.  “Active Transportation to School: Trends Among U.S. Schoolchildren, 1969-2001.”
  American Journal of Preventive Medicine 32(6):509-516.

• McDonald, N. 2007.  “Travel and the social environment: Evidence from Alameda County, California.”
  Transportation Research D 12: 53-63.

• McDonald, N. 2006. “An Exploratory Analysis of Children's Travel Patterns.”  Transportation Research Record:
  Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1977: 1-7.

• McDonald, N. 2005. “Does the Built Environment Affect the Travel ‘Gender Gap’?,” Conference Proceedings 35:
  Research on Women’s Issues in Transportation; Volume 2: Technical Papers.  Washington, DC: Transportation
  Research Board.

• McDonald, N., S. Librera, and E. Deakin. 2004. “Free Transit for Low-Income Youth: Experience in the San
  Francisco Bay Area.”  Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1887:
  153-160.

• McDonald, N. and R. Noland. 2001. “Simulated Travel Impacts of High-Occupancy Vehicle Lane Conversion
  Alternatives.”  Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1765: 1-7.