Evaluation of safe routes to school programs : qualitative and quantitative analysis of parental decision-making.

Details

• Creators:
  Weigand, Lynn ; McDonald, Noreen
• Corporate Creators:
  Portland State University
• Corporate Contributors:
  Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Route choice
  • Decision making
  • Parents
  • Students Safe Routes to School
• Publication/ Report Number:
  OTREC-RR-11-01
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Oregon
• Corporate Publisher:
  Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium
• Abstract:
  In the United States, walking to school declined from 42% of 5-18 year olds in 1969 to 16% in 20011. The US ; Department of Transportation has responded to this dramatic decrease by funding the Safe Routes to School program ; for $612 million in SAFETEA-LU. The program’s funding emphasize infrastructure improvements such as ; completing sidewalks and adding crosswalks by requiring between 70% and 90% of funding be allocated toward ; infrastructure. However, recent research shows that 2 of 3 children who currently are driven to school, but live close ; enough to walk, do so because it is more convenient for parents2. Currently, policymakers and planners have few ; tools to estimate the effectiveness of SRTS interventions. ; This research project fills the research gap by developing a stated preference survey to better understand how SRTS ; interventions affect rates of walking. The stated preference survey identifies how parental attitudes and time ; constraints affect intervention effectiveness. A unique aspect of this study is the comparison of the results of the ; stated preference experiments with on-the-ground evaluations of Portland’s SRTS program which were collected ; concurrently for a separate project. ; The second component of the project was a series of focus groups with parents of grade levels at selected schools ; participating in the SRTS program. Results from the focus groups provide more in-depth information about parental ; attitudes and time constraints as they affect their decisions about their child’s transportation to school. In addition, it ; will enhance the program evaluation and provide valuable data to help program better target their program efforts ; toward parents.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  OTREC Project 2010-299
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/23313/dot_23313_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 731.41 KB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1fe6ab06cfd946b24dddc090430d22b6a5fa6b5155acf2e3de6ce6ccdaa51649257bf59794331a0899be78300f2974b0d45b1550262ea571bb6e05c4515485f1