Built Environment and Walking to School: Findings from a Student Travel Behavior Survey in Massachusetts

Abstract

Thousands of communities across America now promote walking and biking (active commuting) to school as a mechanism to increase physical activity, reduce traffic congestion, and improve air quality. Distance to school and attributes of the built environment are crucial factors in a child’s mode choice, and some of the most difficult determinants to influence with programmatic interventions. Further understanding the built environment’s role may help in assessing a school’s mode shift potential and more effectively planning and implementing strategies that increase walking and biking to school. Based on a student travel behavior survey of 18,713 responses from 105 schools in Massachusetts, a multilevel model was used to investigate the effects of route, neighborhood, and school characteristics on walking to school. The model results indicate that the built environment affects the odds of walking to school. Specifically, short routes along less-trafficked streets with mixed land use are associated with the increased odds of children walking to school. Investigating these built environment characteristics of the route, neighborhood, and school through a multilevel model, the study created a framework for examining between-school differences in walk-to-school rates, while controlling for built environment factors of the school and student body. A potential application for this work is to compare walk-to-school rates across heterogeneous schools and contextualize schools’ baseline walk share, set appropriate and measurable mode shift goals, and track their progress over time.