Completed Project Proposal

Geographic and Qualitative Methods for Improving Children’s Active Travel Policy

I. Introduction

This study provides geographic analysis to supplement research characterizing parental attitudes toward children’s travel to school. The study investigates correlations in home location, characteristics of the built environment, and travel behaviors of elementary school students. The project is an extension of a doctoral dissertation in planning that tests the efficacy of a context-sensitive approach to active travel policy design. The goal of the study is to identify the parents and students most likely to respond to organized efforts encouraging walking and biking to school and to pinpoint what makes these households appropriate candidates for active travel intervention. Ultimately, the study will provide insight into methods to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of active travel intervention policy, as coordinated by school initiatives and the national Safe Routes to School program.

Specific Aims:

1.) Narrow the target population for active travel intervention based on factor analysis of parental attitude clusters.
2.) Use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to:
a.) Identify geographic trends in clusters of parents showing similar attitudes toward travel or sharing common commuting issues.
b.) Identify significant physical or environmental barriers to walking and biking to school within study neighborhoods.
3.) Compare physical and social qualities of home and school neighborhoods through on-site analysis and environmental inventories.
4.) Investigate case-specific influences of children’s travel to school and stated ways of encouraging walking and biking to school.

Primary stakeholders for the project include students, parents, educators and school officials of the seven participating elementary schools in Denver, Colorado: Bromwell, Cory, Edison, Philips, Sabin, Slavens, and Valdez. Secondary parties interested in the findings of the study include Safe Routes to School programs and partners, children’s organizations, planners, policy makers, health and public service professionals.

The majority of this research will be conducted in the CU College of Architecture and Planning environmental design laboratory using geographic information systems (GIS) computer modeling software. Additional data, in the form of photographs and on-site observation, will be gathered from the seven school neighborhoods in Denver, CO. This qualitative phase of research will be crucial to better characterize and correctly interpret the maps modeling the built environment.

II. Background

The journey to school has come under review in recent years due to a growing concern of increasing rates of childhood obesity and a search for ways to reverse this trend (Tudor-Locke et al., 2002). A longitudinal overview of active travel to school reveals significant changes in the rate of walking and biking among U.S. schoolchildren over the last four decades. During this time, the rates of walking and biking for school trips fell from 40% to 13%. Graphic models show that this decline was mirrored by an increase in the rate of driving from 17 % to 55% (McDonald, 2007 A).

Active travel to school (ATS), in the form of walking or biking, is seen as an effective way to re-incorporate exercise into a child’s daily routine. ATS gained national support in 2005 with the launching of the federally funded Safe Routes to School program (SR2S). The program coordinates schools, parents and community leaders to encourage and enable more children to safely walk and bike to school (National Center for Safe Routes to School, 2008). This policy initiative has generated a need to identify physical, social and personal factors influencing a child’s journey to school. Ultimately, ATS research influences the design, implementation, and effectiveness of policies aimed at encouraging healthy behavior in children by means of the journey to school.

The role of the built environment in the journey to school has particular implications for planners and designers interested in encouraging healthy behavior through neighborhood design and improvements. ATS literature supports these interests by aiming to identify characteristics of the built environment that encourage or discourage walking and biking to school. Distance to school is repeatedly reported to be the most significant factor of mode choice (McMillan, 2005; McMillan, 2007; Schlossberg et al., 2006). Specifically, children are more likely to walk to school if the distance is less than 1 mile. Biking to school is more likely to occur within 2 miles of school (Schlossberg et al., 2006). Other elements of the built environment have been investigated for their association to travel safety, comfort and efficiency with mixed findings. Such elements include: block size, traffic speeds and density, intersection density, side walk inventory, route directness, land use barriers, commercial density, amount of windows facing the street, and tree cover (McMillan, 2007; Schlossberg et al., 2006). Better understanding of how these elements affect travel behavior is needed to guide decision-making concerning future urban development and redevelopment, neighborhood design, and transportation policy.

Further examination of the journey to school has sought to uncover patterns in social factors related to travel behavior. Age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, neighborhood socioeconomic status and neighborhood cohesion have been investigated for correlation to distance to school and journey to school mode selection. Age is a strong indicator of active travel; the older a child is the more likely he or she is to walk or bike to school (McDonald, 2007 B; McDonald, 2008 B). The effects of other social factors remain inconclusive, though ethnicity and socioeconomic status have been linked to lower rates of car ownership and therefore higher rates of walking (McDonald, 2008 A).

Increasing attention is being paid to the role of household interactions in children’s travel behavior. There is a growing body of evidence that supports a strong correlation between children’s travel to school, and parent employment status and work travel demands. In particular, the commuting patterns of the mother have been significantly associated with children’s travel behavior (McDonald, 2008 B). Parents’ perceptions of the distance to school, travel safety, and convenience have been connected to the likelihood of children walking or biking to school (Black et al., 2001).

GIS technologies are increasingly being used in ATS research and policy analysis to model the built environment (Bringolf-Isler et al., 2008; Müller et al., 2008). GIS’ capacity to store large bodies of information and the ease of data manipulation make it an essential tool for researchers, planners, and policy makers alike. The software allows for varying degrees of spatial representation and systematic analysis of relationships between two or more environmental variables. It can also be used to identify geographic trends in data, often linking environmental and social patterns.

This study uses factors previously identified in the literature to isolate the population most likely to embrace ATS. It then uses GIS technology and supporting qualitative methods to seek trends between household travel behavior, attitudes toward travel to school, and the home locations of participating families. Ultimately, the study aims to answer the following questions: which households are the most appropriate targets for active travel intervention and where do they live? Are there patterns in the home locations and neighborhood characteristics of these households? Are there patterns in the home locations and stated means of encouraging ATS?

Research Experience

I have been participating in independent research since 2002 when I conducted my first social scientific study for a competitive research program. My experience during college has been primarily prompted by course material and requirements. In the fall of 2007, I took several courses that affirmed my interest and aptitude for the research process: Technical Communication and Design, Research Issues and Methods in Planning, and Introduction to Geographic Information Systems. During the semester, I explored a growing personal interest in transportation planning and completed a detailed study that combined literature review and GIS modeling to analyze the bicycle transportation system of Davis, California.

III. Methods

This study uses context-sensitive research including GIS and qualitative methods to support more efficient and effective ATS policy design. Geographic analysis helps identify a target population for active travel intervention. Environmental inventories of home and school locations capture real life qualities of the neighborhoods within the study area. A brief qualitative survey deepens the understanding of personal factors influencing parents’ perceptions of walking and biking to school.

The data used in this study were collected by Kelly Zuniga for the purposes of her doctoral dissertation. During the spring of 2007 and 2008, Kelly distributed a qualitative survey to the parents of seven elementary schools in Denver, Colorado. The survey included the following topics for each participating family: 1.) Family demographics and dynamics, 2.) current travel to school mode choice, 3.) parental attitudes toward ATS, and 4.) short-answer questions about travel to school (See attachment for survey details). A total of 660 participants are included in her study.

This study uses GIS to identify geographic trends in parent clusters showing similar travel attitudes. The analysis is conducted using the following steps: 1.) Plot school and home locations of participating families on a Denver County map according to the local street grid. Home locations are not exact, but instead represent the closest intersection to home as stated on the survey. 2.) Highlight parental attitude clusters as identified by the doctoral study and analyze for spatial patterns. 3.) Further analyze parent cluster distribution patterns according to environmental variables such as presence of sidewalks, traffic density and speed, intersection density and tree cover.

GIS is a useful tool for performing spatial analysis at varying scales. However, it is limited in the amount of information it is able to display. Elements of the built environment are represented as shapes and lines and no not give a true sense of environmental texture or quality. In order to gain a truer sense of the school neighborhoods modeled using GIS, on-site observations and photographic inventory is needed. On-site analysis requires visiting each participating school and recording the block length, sidewalk and street widths, and the number and locations of crosswalks for each street within a 4-block radius of each school. Photographs will be taken along these routes and later analyzed for building use, age and quality, amount of windows facing the street, and density of tree cover.

This study also includes a qualitative analysis of a portion of the doctoral survey. The questions ask parents 1.) What influences how you get your children to school? 2.) What might encourage you to walk or bike your children to school? These parent responses provide a personal perspective to be considered in addition to the geographic analysis. The responses are analyzed using word and phrase repetition identification methods. Parents are then clustered according to patterns in these repetitions and modeled for geographic trends.

IV. Time Schedule

The first phase of the project consists of GIS analysis and neighborhood inventory, and will occur in January and February, 2009. Qualitative survey analysis will take place in March. April is reserved for the last phase of the project which includes compiling the report and preparing presentation documents. Presentation of the findings will happen at semester’s end in May, 2009.

V. Budget Justification

The largest category of funds requested will reimburse driving expenses at 35 cents per mile. Each trip from Boulder to Denver requires visiting all seven schools and totals 100 miles. Visits will occur once or twice per week, for a total of 15 trips. Large-scale prints of maps and inventory findings for the final presentation present another significant expense. An aerial photo data set of the study area created by the City of Denver will be needed for the GIS analysis. A voice recorder and microphone will be used to record observations during the environmental inventory and follow-up interviews with participants. A case of blank CD’s will be needed for photo and data storage.