ness of walking and biking to school. Evaluations of Safe Routes to School initiatives have found that they have been effective at changing behavior and reducing injuries.
- However, there has been little attention to the impacts of these programs on pupil transportation costs.
- This analysis assesses the potential economic benefits of Safe Routes to School programs in the US context by estimating the annual costs of using motorized transport for short trips to schools, examining real-world examples of the costs savings of SRTS programs, and evaluating land use impacts on school transportation costs using a simulation analysis of school bus routes.
- We find that there is potential for school districts and families to reduce transport expenditures through public sector investments in walking and biking infrastructure near schools. We also find that land use context matters and the most cost-effective investments would benefit schools where large numbers of children live within walking distance.
McDonald NC, Steiner RL, Palmer WM, Bullock AN, Sisiopiku VP, and Lytle BF. Costs of school transportation: quantifying the fiscal impacts of encouraging walking and bicycling for school travel. Transportation 2014, November.
- Objective. Joint use policies (JUP) encourage shared facility use, usually between schools and a city or private organization, for both physical activity-related and non-physical activity-related programs. Little is known about JUP's impact on physical activity (PA). This study examined whether more specific JUPs were associated with increased PA and decreased sedentary behavior (SB) in adolescents.
- Methods. Data on PA, sports participation, and SB were taken from annual cross-sectional nationally representative samples of 51,269 8th, 10th and 12th grade public school students nested in 461 school districts in the US from 2009–2011. JUP measures were constructed using information obtained from corresponding school district JU policies. Multivariable analyses were conducted, controlling for indivi