Evaluation of the California Safe Routes to School Legislation: Urban Form Changes and Children's Active Transportation to School

//
Research Papers

Evaluation of the California Safe Routes to School Legislation: Urban Form Changes and Children's Active Transportation to School

February 2005
February, 2005
Topic:
Schools, Safe Routes to School, Walking and Biking to School
Population Served:
School-age Youth (K-12)
Location by State:
California
Study Type:
Intervention Evaluation
DOWNLOAD PDF (0.08 MB)
Description:

Boarnet, M.G., Anderson, C.L., Day, K., McMillian, T., & Alfonzo, M. (2005). Evaluation of the California Safe Routes to School Legislation: Urban Form Changes and Children’s Active Transportation to School. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 28(2S2), 134-140.

Background: Walking or bicycling to school could contribute to children’s daily physical activity, but physical environment changes are often needed to improve the safety and convenience of walking and cycling routes. The California Safe Routes to School (SR2S) legislation provided competitive funds for construction projects such as sidewalks, traffic lights, pedestrian crossing improvements, and bicycle paths.

Methods: A cross-sectional evaluation examined the relationship between urban form changes and walking and bicycle travel to school. Surveys were distributed to parents of third- through fifth-grade children at ten schools that had a completed SR2S project nearby. Two groups were created based on whether parents stated that their children would pass the SR2S project on the way to school or not.
 
Results: Children who passed completed SR2S projects were more likely to show increases in walking or bicycle travel than were children who would not pass by projects (15% vs 4%), based on parents’ responses.
 
Conclusions: Results support the effectiveness of SR2S construction projects in increasing walking or bicycling to school for children who would pass these projects on their way to school.
 

STAY UP TO DATE

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.

RECENTLY ADDED TOOLS & RESOURCES
Open Streets: Trends and Opportunities
Research Briefs & Syntheses
Contributing to helping to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Truly shifting...
Research Papers
A Northern European perspective on creating more activity friendly cities
Research Papers

more tools & resources
Annual Conference 2021

We are pleased to announce an exciting new alliance between Active Living Research and GP RED to co-host and coordinate...

more info

MOVE! A BLOG ABOUT ACTIVE LIVING
New Name – Same Great Conference!

The "Active Living Conference" aims to break down research and practice silos and...

August 14, 2018
Event

more MOVE!