Active Living Research

Walkable commercial districts are a key component of communities that promote active living. Walking has great health benefits, including helping people maintain a healthy weight. This report examines whether there are also economic benefits to businesses in walkable communities. The study consisted of a meta-analysis of 70 studies and articles. However, there have been few studies that address economic performance directly and the author conducted an exploratory study of 15 walkable shopping areas judged as successful to examine the sources of success.

Key Findings

• There is great enthusiasm for walkable shopping areas among retail experts, developers and many residents of urban and suburban areas.

• Walking shopping areas have a potential to prosper as a result of demographics, increased gas prices, public policies encouraging higher densities and changing life style preferences.

• Businesses can be successful if such areas reach a critical mass, cater to diverse needs, are located in higher density areas or have good mass transit service, and have a supermarket as an anchor.

• With success, enterprises in walkable shopping areas are able to pay higher rents for their space, and housing near walkable commercial areas commonly sells for higher prices than in more distant areas.

Implications

While the economic performance of walkable shopping areas is worthy of continued empirical research, including interviewing merchants, all the evidence seems to suggest that walkable retail is on the upswing, and likely to grow over the next several decades. Since 45% of daily trips, on average, are made for shopping and running errands, encouraging walking is an important strategy in reducing obesity and improving health. It is also important to reducing energy usage and carbon emissions.

Report summary (credit to PBIC): Costs for pedestrian and bicycle safety infrastructure often vary greatly from city to city and state to state. This document (and associated database) is intended to provide meaningful estimates of infrastructure costs by collecting up-to-date cost information for pedestrian and bicycle treatments from states and cities across the country. Using this information, researchers, engineers, planners, and the general public can better understand the cost of pedestrian and bicycle treatments in their communities and make informed decisions about which infrastructure enhancements are best suited for implementation. By collecting countrywide cost information, this database should contain useful information for any state or city, even if costs from that particular state or city are not included for a given treatment.

A better understanding of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure costs will hopefully ensure that funding is allocated to pedestrian and bicycle improvements more efficiently. The goal is to encourage more communities to enhance facilities for non-motorized users and increase the safety of those choosing to walk and bike. Building a new roadway for automobiles can cost tens of millions of dollars to construct, and many of the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects and facilities are extremely low-cost in comparison. This infrastructure can also serve to improve safety for all road users, while also promoting healthier lifestyles through more bicycling and walking. The tables provided in this document provide general estimates and cost ranges for 77 pedestrian and bicycle facilities using more than 1,700 cost observations, and are presented with a median and average price, the minimum and maximum cost, and the number of sources. By making more informed decisions about the costs of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure treatments, decision-makers will be able to dedicate funds to those treatments secure in the knowledge that these investments are often affordable as well as determine which treatment is the most cost-effective.

It must be noted that costs can vary widely from state to state and also from site to site. Therefore, the cost information contained in this report should be used only for estimating purposes and not necessarily for determining actual bid prices for a specific infrastructure project.

This report was funded by Active Living Research.

This study examined the association between the presence of pedestrian and bicycle plans to pedestrian and bicyclist nonfatal and fatal injuries from 1997 to 2009 among 553 North Carolina (NC) municipalities. We considered all municipal plans (n=92; 49 pedestrian; 34 bicycle; and 9 combined plans featuring pedestrian and bicyclist components) published through 2009. Counts of pedestrian and bicyclist nonfatal and fatal injuries came from the NC Department of Transportation crash database, and the estimated number of pedestrian and bicycle trips per municipality in one year were used to calculate pedestrian and bicyclist nonfatal and fatal injury rates. In the 13-year study period, pedestrian/combined municipality plans and bicycle/combined municipality plans were present for 189 (2.6%) and 238 (3.3%) municipality-years, respectively. There were 11,795 nonfatal injuries, 9237 possible nonfatal injuries, and 1075 fatal injuries sustained by pedestrians in pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes. There were 4842 nonfatal injuries, 3666 possible nonfatal injuries, and 134 fatal injuries sustained by bicyclists in bicyclist-motor vehicle crashes. Although not statistically significant, unadjusted nonfatal and fatal injury rates among pedestrians and bicyclists were lower in those municipality-years in which plans had been published that year or in a year prior, compared to municipality-years lacking a plan. Adjusted rate ratios (RR) indicated that pedestrian nonfatal and fatal injury rates decreased in municipality-years with publication of pedestrian/combined plans (nonfatal injury RR: 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.68, 0.82; fatal injury RR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.85). However, bicyclist nonfatal and fatal injury rates did not significantly change with publication of bicyclist/combined plans. Our research suggests that plan publication is associated with lower rates of nonfatal and fatal injury in pedestrians; this association was not observed for bicyclists. Further work must determine how the extent of implementation and quality of safety-related content within these plans affects changes in nonfatal and fatal injury rates.

Policymakers in many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, have introduced programs to increase walking and biking to school through education, encouragement, and infrastructure improvements. The U.S. government has allocated over $1.1 billion to the federal Safe Routes to School program since 2005. However, there are few evaluations of the Safe Routes to School program. Our study used a robust quasi-experimental research design to measure the impacts of Eugene, Oregon’s Safe Routes to School program on walking and biking. Using data collected between 2007 and 2011 at 14 schools with and without Safe Routes to School programs, we showed that the Safe Routes to School program was associated with increases in walking and biking. Education and encouragement programs were associated with a five percentage point increase in biking. Augmenting education programs with additional SRTS improvements such as sidewalks, crosswalks, covered bike parking, and Boltage was associated with increases in walking and biking of five to 20 percentage points. The study results illustrate the potential for the Safe Routes to School program to change behavior and should encourage other communities to plan for multi-modal school travel.

BACKGROUND: The federal Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program was launched in 2005 to increase the safety of, and participation in, walking and biking to school. PURPOSE: This study assesses SRTS awards made between 2005 and 2012 by analyzing funding amounts and purposes, and comparing demographic and neighborhood characteristics of schools with and without SRTS programs. METHODS: The study analyzes all SRTS projects awarded between 2005 and 2012 using descriptive statistics (n=5,532). Analysis was conducted in 2013. RESULTS: The average SRTS award was $158,930 and most funding was spent on infrastructure (62.8%) or combined infrastructure and non-infrastructure (23.5%) projects. Schools benefiting from the SRTS program served higher proportions of Latino students and were more likely to be in higher-density areas. Few differences existed in neighborhood demographics, particularly educational attainment, work trip commute mode, and median household income. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis found that schools benefiting from the SRTS program are more urban and have higher Latino populations but are otherwise comparable to US public schools. This suggests that disadvantaged areas have had access to the SRTS program.

Disadvantaged rural youth may be especially at risk for obesity and poorer health due to physical inactivity. Research suggests that extracurricular school programs can increase physical activity for this population. This study sought to determine whether local differences existed in the availability of supportive environments for extracurricular physical activity in North Carolina middle schools. Multiple data sources, including a self-administered questionnaire to personnel at 325 schools were integrated. Multilevel models were estimated using a composite index for supportive environments as the dependent variable and school compositional factors, economic resources, and community social factors as explanatory variables. Study findings suggested adolescents living in socioeconomically deprived rural areas had fewer environmental resources for extracurricular physical activity. Rural schools in poor areas of the state with high racial heterogeneity demonstrated the lowest environmental support. Reduced availability of supportive school environments may be one factor contributing to physical inactivity in the state.

As financial resources diminish and the cost and development of land increases, community-school partnerships for the joint use of public school facilities have received growing attention. Although joint use is not a new concept, its resurgence as an efficient and effective way to deliver recreational services comes at a time when researchers, practitioners, and policy makers are examining ways to address challenges an increasingly inactive population faces. Although there are examples of successful  joint use partnerships, many entities are reluctant to engage in them due to fears of vandalism, liability, overuse of facilities, cost, and lack of knowledge about how to develop joint use agreements. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to use a case study methodological approach to understand factors that resulted in a successful joint use agreement. The school and parks and recreation department used in this case study were purposefully selected due to the high amount of community- and school-related use during after school hours. Semistructured interviews were conducted with the school principal, school athletic director, town parks and recreation director, parks and recreation facility managers, and the town manager. The interviews yielded four major themes that were identified as reasons for the success of this joint use agreement: deliberate formation and continued maintenance of relationships, shared vision, agreements set up to be mutually beneficial, and resources to address community demands. Although our findings are limited because we examined only one joint use partnership in one region of the country and likely excluded the perspectives of other potential key informants (i.e., program participants), our results revealed patterns that might be useful for practice. In this case, the strengths of the parks and recreation administrators were their willingness to maintain constant  communication with school personnel and their emphasis on being respectful of the needs of the school administrators and their programs. Parks and recreation personnel understood the importance of establishing and maintaining positive relationships and how these relationships are directly linked to their ability to offer quality recreational programs. However, the development and maintenance of joint use agreements is not easy. For joint use agreements to work, there must be cooperation and effort by all parties involved, clearly stated objectives, and the pursuit of outcomes that are beneficial to both sides.

Different models of school sport delivery, such as intramurals (IM), may attract students who are less skilled or less interested in traditional varsity sports (VS). The purpose of this study was to examine whether school sport delivery models (IM or VS) differentially influence middle school students' motivations to participate in school sports. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual framework, participants in school sponsored sport programs (n = 2,021) from four middle schools (2 IM; 2 VS) completed a school sport participation questionnaire at the beginning and end of a school year. Results suggest that intentions to participate in sport either increase or are maintained through participation in school sports, and the intentions of non-participants decrease over time. A singular model of school sport that only includes highly competitive varsity sports may limit opportunities for children to play sport and diminish their intentions for enduring sport participation.