Citation

McDonald NC, Aalborg AE. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 2009; 75(3): 331-342.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Planning Association)

DOI

10.1080/01944360902988794

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Increasing the rates of walking and biking to school requires a better understanding of why many parents choose to drive their children to school and the related implications for the Safe Routes to School program. A telephone survey was conducted of parents in the San Francisco Bay Area with children between the ages of 10 and 14.

FINDINGS showed that 75% of parents driving their children less than 2 miles to school said they did this for convenience and to save time. Nearly half of parents driving their children less than 2 miles did not allow their child to walk to school without adult supervision. Accompanying a child on a walk to school greatly increases the time the household devotes to such a trip. Few Safe Routes to School programs currently address issues of parental convenience and time constraints. These findings indicate that to increase rates of walking to school, Safe Routes to School programs should take parental convenience and time constraints into account by providing ways children can walk to school supervised by someone other than the parent, such as through the promotion of walking school buses.

Language: en