Mariela Alfonzo

California's Safe Routes to School program: impacts on walking, bicycling, and pedestrian safety

Abstract This article evaluates Californias pioneering Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program, which funds traffic improvement projects designed to improve safety for childrens walking and bicycling to school and to increase the number of children who do so. Through surveys of parents and observations of vehicle and pedestrian traffic before and after project construction, we examined the impacts of 10 traffic improvement projects funded through the SR2S program. We measured changes in perceived safety and in safety-related behaviors associated with childrens trips to school, and examined changes in the number of children walking and bicycling following these improvements. Five of the 10 traffic improvement projects we evaluated showed evidence of a successful impact. The findings have implications for Californias SR2S program and for similar initiatives throughout the country.

Overweight, Obesity, and Inactivity and Urban Design in Rapidly Growing Chinese Cities

China faces rising rates of overweight, obesity, and physical inactivity among its citizens. Risk is highest in Chinas rapidly growing cities and urban populations. Current urban development practices and policies in China heighten this risk. These include policies that support decentralization in land use planning; practices of neighborhood gating; and policies and practices tied to motor vehicle travel, transit planning, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. In this paper, we review cultural, political, and economic issues that influence overweight, obesity, and inactivity in China. We examine key urban planning features and policies that shape urban environments that may compromise physical activity as part of everyday life, including walking and bicycling. We review the empirical research to identify planning and design strategies that support physical activity in other high-density cities in developing and developed countries. Finally, we identify successful strategies to increase physical activity in another growing, high-density city - New York City - to suggest strategies that may have relevance for rapidly urbanizing Chinese cities.

How walkable is Walker's Paradise?

This article tests the extent to which a measure of walkable access is a good proxy for the quality of the walking environment. Based on existing findings on inequalities of walkability, we ask whether this relation varies between neighborhoods with low and high incomes. Walk Score is used to measure walkable access while the State of Place Index is applied to synthesize the qualitative urban form dimensions collected as part of the Irvine Minnesota Inventory. Simple bivariate correlations and difference-in-means tests assess the relationship and difference in average scores between the two. We draw on an existing sample of 115 walkable neighborhoods in the Washington, DC metro area that Mariela Alfonzo and colleagues had collected for previous research and that we augmented to include additional low-income neighborhoods. Our results reveal a strong and positive overall association between walkable access (Walk Score) and walkability (State of Place). However, this association masks problems with the quality of the walking environment that are significantly larger in low-income neighborhoods (even those with very good walkable access), especially regarding connectivity, personal safety, and the presence of litter and graffiti. As a proxy for walkability, Walk Score’s walkable access measure is, therefore, not equally strong across all neighborhoods but declines with income. In this sense, Walker’s Paradise is more walkable in higher than low-income neighborhoods.