Distance is the strongest predictor of active commuting to school. The purpose of this study was to assess travel distance to school and the prevalence of active commuting to school at Minneapolis elementary schools both before and after a city-wide school choice policy change was implemented in 2010. Under the new policy students were limited to neighborhood schools, thus potentially decreasing their distance to school.  Rapid-response funding was awarded in order to collect baseline data before the policy was implemented.  Distance to school was obtained from the school district's database of the location of student's home, and the percent of students actively commuting to school was assessed by direct observation.