1 / 1

Analyzing Walkability for School Children in Urban and Suburban Areas

This study evaluates walking routes to school in new urban and suburban neighborhoods, focusing on environmental walkability factors and how they impact fifth graders. By comparing a new urban/LEED-ND pilot community, a mixed community, and a standard suburban community, the research aims to assess the level of walkability and its correlation with walking habits and perceptions. The study uses questionnaires and interviews to gather data from students walking to school and identifies key variables influencing walkability. Findings reveal that the new urban community offers a more pleasant and safer walking environment compared to the mixed and suburban areas, emphasizing the importance of diverse criteria like pleasurability, crime safety, and traffic conditions in enhancing walkability for school children.

liko
Télécharger la présentation

Analyzing Walkability for School Children in Urban and Suburban Areas

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Walking routes to school in new urban and suburban neighborhoods: An environmental walkability analysis of blocks and routes I. Research Question(s) / Purpose of the article: We assessed environmental and perceptual correlates of walking and walkability for fifth graders from three communities attending two schools: A new urban/LEED-ND pilot community, mixed, and standard suburban community. 2. Hypothesis: We expect the standard suburban communities will offer fewer micro level walkability features. We hypothesize that new urban blocks and routes are more walkable than suburban ones and offer more consistent traffic conditions across the route to school. We also hypothesize that more audited walkability relates to children and their parents perceiving fewer barriers to walking to school and to more children reporting walking to school. 3. Variables: A. Independent Variable: A new urban/LEED-ND pilot community, mixed, and standard suburban community. B. Dependent Variable: 3 socio-demographic variables, 6 another criteria (Traffic Safety, accessibility, Pleasurability, Crime Safety, Density of housing, diverse destination) IV. Methodology: Questionnaire + Interview A. Who participated? Compare 3 groups of students attending to the school (Walkable, mixed, less walkable) B. What did they do? They walked in 1.5 mile from their home to school in the shortest street route. (The routes are chosen by parents) V. Major Findings: In contrast, the design of the new urban community resulted in a more pleasant routing for children going to school. Although the new urban community blocks had higher overall residential densities than the other two communities, that density was internal to the community, not relegated to a highly trafficked exterior arterial and not sited to receive the major pedestrian flow to school. Instead, the walking routes in the new urban community were notable for their relatively high scores on diversity, pleasurability, crime safety and traffic safety. The new urban community has a more walkable design than the mixed and suburban communities.

More Related