ance from school had a greater impact on the walking or bicycling to school habits of suburban students compared to urban students.
- The authors contend that actively commuting to school gives children the opportunity to explore nature, get exercise, and develop cognitive skills. With the barriers to active commuting to school identified, the Safe Routes to School Programs in Illinois can target their resources effectively to encourage children and their parents to consider walking and biking alternatives for trips to and from school.
Fries, R., E. Sykut, et al. (2012). Barriers Influencing Illinois Children School Travel Mode Choices. Advances in Transportation Studies 27.
- This study examined the relationship between state laws requiring minimum bussing distances, hazardous route exemptions, sidewalks, crossing guards, speed zones, and trafﬁc control measures around schools and active travel to school (ATS) policies and practices in nationally representative samples of U.S. public elementary schools between 2007–2009. The state laws and school data were compiled through primary legal research and annual mail-back surveys of principals, respectively.
- A pooled, cross-sectional analysis examined the relationship between the state laws and the school policies and practices.
- A stacked, cross-sectional data set containing 1967 schools over the combined period, 2007–2009, comprised the ﬁnal study sample (with 578, 749, and 641 schools included in each of the three corresponding study years).
- Multivariate logistic and zero-inﬂated poisson regression indicated that all state law categories (except for sidewalks) relate to ATS. These laws should be considered in addition to formal Safe Routes to School programs as possible inﬂuences on ATS.
- Nearly 40 percent of schools were located in states with minimum bussing distance requirements; 23.4 percent were located in states with hazardous route exemptions.
- More schools allowed all students to walk to school if the state had a minimum bussing distance law of great