Ruth L. Steiner

Impact of the Safe Routes to School Program on Walking and Bicycling

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Increasing walking and bicycling to school has been a national policy goal since Congress created the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program. While previous research has suggested positive program impacts, there have been no large-scale studies with strong research designs. Here we study 801 schools in the District of Columbia, Florida, Oregon, and Texas to assess how the proportion of students walking and bicycling to school changed after the introduction of SRTS programs. By including schools with and without SRTS programs and analyzing data collected over time (2007–2012), we are able to distinguish SRTS impacts from secular trends. We find increases in walking and bicycling after schools implemented SRTS programs. Engineering improvements are associated with an 18% relative increase in walking and bicycling, and the effects of education and encouragement programs are cumulative. Over the course of five years, these education and encouragement programs could lead to a 25% relative increase in walking and bicycling. Takeaway for practice: Planners should work to prioritize capital improvements that improve non-motorized access to school and revise comprehensive plans and subdivision regulations to ensure that new development supports access to school.

Trip Generation and Parking Requirements in Traditional Shopping Districts

The New Urbanists assume that if you build a village center or Main Street-style retail businesses in the middle of a residential neighborhood, it will, among other things, reduce the level of automobile usage. Based on the claim of reduced automobile travel, advocates suggest that parking requirements and transportation impact fees should similarly be reduced. Although it would be ideal to test these claims using New Urbanist development, current developments lack well-established retail businesses. Thus, this study considers these claims of the New Urbanists using six prototypical traditional shopping districts in the Oakland-Berkeley subarea of the San Francisco Bay Area. Each of these districts is surrounded by residential areas of moderately high density [between 5.3 and 8.5 persons per hectare (13–21 persons per gross acre)] and middle-class residents. These shopping areas vary in scale and mix of businesses covering the range of sizes and types espoused by the New Urbanists. The trip generation rates and parking needs for each of these prototypical shopping areas are calculated and compared with ITE-based rates for both an average hour and a daily rate. Based on these comparisons, a conclusion is reached that the claims of the New Urbanists for reduced parking and transportation fees cannot be wholeheartedly supported if the needs of the neighborhood are to be considered. Although many customers walk to these shopping areas, the trips by modes other than automobile are offset by a higher overall level of activity in the shopping area.

Factors affecting land travel

The paper discusses some preliminary findings on how fuel prices and other factors are linked with automobile fuel use, travel and fuel economy. It is shown that there is a clear crosssectional relationship between fuel prices and both on-road (actual) fleet fuel intensity and new-car test fuel intensity. There is also a clear relationship between the fuel prices and both fuel use per car and fuel use per capita. Although the paper focuses on price effects, it discusses other determinants of fuel use. An important new element in the study is the quantification of the components of the differences in automobile fuel use. In particular, the authors have been able to develop comparable time series of numbers of vehicles, driving distances, and fuel intensity by fuel type. The discussion is focused on what the international data imply for fuel use in the USA, with particular emphasis on the comparison with Europe. Despite the US focus in the paper, however, most of the findings are relevant to the other countries studies. The paper concludes with a discussion of what policy measures might restrain future automobile fuel use.

PLANNING-LEVEL AREAWIDE MULTIMODAL LEVEL-OF-SERVICE ANALYSIS: PERFORMANCE MEASURES FOR CONGESTION MANAGEMENT

The state of Florida has been experiencing an explosion of growth, and it is one of the fastest growing states in the country. While the state has been in the forefront of growth management initiatives, the results have been less than satisfactory. The state recognized the need to integrate land use planning efforts with transportation planning efforts. Legislation was passed that allows the formation of multimodal transportation districts, which focus on appropriate land use mixes and densities that would enhance the use of transportation modes other than the automobile. There are several key elements in the evaluation of these districts, using both land use analysis and the recently adopted multimodal level-of-service performance measures. To validate these evaluation techniques, especially focusing on the level-of-service performance measures, several case studies were undertaken. The guidelines for the formation of a multimodal transportation district provide local governments with a template for enhancing existing and new development. These guidelines also provide a blueprint for sustainable growth and the promotion and development of livable communities through the integration of transportation, land use, and urban design.

Understanding and Mapping Elements of Urban Form That Affect Children's Ability to Walk and Bicycle to School: Case Study of Two Tampa Bay, Florida, Counties

In 1969, 48% of students walked or biked to school. By 2001, that proportion had fallen to 15%. Increasing childrens active travel to school is important for a variety of reasons, including the rising rates of childhood obesity and increasing fuel costs. Recent studies indicate that elements of the built environment affect the amount of time people engage in physical activity. This study evaluates two indicators of the urban form as measures of walkability potential: street connectivity and residential density around elementary schools in Pasco and Hillsborough counties in Florida. By means of controlling for school age on the basis of the growth management legislation history in Florida, four growth eras are compared. Pedestrian sheds of ½- and 1-mi radii around school points are used as study areas. These indicators offer insight into the evolution of the urban form around elementary schools and its implications for students’ ability to walk to school. Preliminary findings suggest that walkability indicators in the vicinity of elementary schools built before 1950 exhibited high levels of street connectivity and residential density. These values declined consistently until stricter school planning legislation was enacted, when values started to increase and sometimes approached pre-1950 levels. This pattern is stronger, however, in Hillsborough County.

Assessing the distribution of safe routes to school program funds, 2005-2012

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 how SRTS funds were allocated to public and private schools and communities and whether there were demographic or locational differences between schools that benefited from SRTS funding and those that did not receive SRTS awards. METHODS The study analyzes all SRTS projects awarded between 2005 and 2012 (N=5532) by using descriptive statistics to profile SRTS funding amounts and purposes, and to compare demographic and neighborhood characteristics of schools with and without SRTS programs. Analysis was conducted in 2013. RESULTS The average SRTS award was

The Evolution of Transportation Concurrency and Urban Development Pattern in Miami-Dade County, Florida

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 Schools benefiting from the SRTS program are more urban and have higher Latino populations but are otherwise comparable to U.S. public schools. This suggests that disadvantaged areas have had access to the SRTS program.

Understanding and mapping institutional impediments to walking and bicycling to school: a case study of Hillsborough County, Florida

Florida’s transportation concurrency was introduced with much ambition to coordinate transportation infrastructure with development, but the lack of roadway capacity in urbanized areas and limited financial resource to invest in roads may have resulted in sprawl. Various policy responses to provide flexibility in the implementation of transportation concurrency, including Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas (TCEAs), have been introduced to address this concern. The adoption of the TCEA in Miami-Dade County was partially effective to reduce sprawl and increase urban infill, but the effectiveness may be undermined by locally discretionary implementation of transportation concurrency and inadequate traffic mitigation efforts.

Assessing multimodal school travel safety in North Carolina

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) legislation calls for the establishment of a Safe Routes to School program in each state that is funded for the five fiscal years from 2005 through 2009. States are required to spend between 70% and 90% for infrastructure and between 10% and 30% on noninfrastructure programs. For each of these components of the program to be successful, the built environment of the community surrounding the school needs to support all modes of travel. Much of the emphasis in Safe Routes to School programs has focused on increasing walking in neighborhoods with the characteristics that support walking, such as high-density residential areas close to schools and connected grid and pedestrian amenities. Using Hillsborough County, Florida, as a case study, this paper focuses on barriers to walking and bicycling to school by examining how decisions about school siting, school attendance boundaries, street network characteristics, and other factors controlled by local governments and school boards affect the potential for children to walk to school.

Transportation Concurrency: Florida's Example

School transportation has been the subject of numerous federal and state policies since the early twentieth century-the Safe Routes to School program is the most recent example. However, few recent studies have thoroughly analyzed the risks and costs associated with different modes of transportation to school. Our descriptive study assessed the injury and fatality rates and related safety costs of different modes of school transportation using crash and exposure data from North Carolina, USA from 2005 to 2012. We found that riding with a teen driver is the most dangerous mode on a per trip basis with injury rates 20 times higher and fatality rates 90 times higher than school buses, which had the lowest injury rates. Non-motorized modes had per trip injury rates equivalent to school buses but per trip fatality rates were 15 times higher than for school buses. The economic costs of school travel-related injuries and fatalities for walking, biking, and teen drivers were substantially higher than other modes. This research has important policy implications because it quantified the risks of different school travel modes which allows policymakers to consider how safety investments can reduce risks. Decades of effort by schools, communities, and the government have made school buses a very safe mode and endeavored to reduce risks to teen drivers. This study highlighted the need for these same actors to reduce the risks of injury for walking and bicycling. As more improvements are made to infrastructure around schools, repeated studies of this type will allow practitioners to examine whether the improvements help mitigate the risks.