School walk zone study, 2002 : executive summary

School Walk Zone Study, 2002 Executive Summary BACKGROUND Forty years ago, half of all U.S. school children walked to school. Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 1 0 percent walk to school. In many communities, as much as 30 percent of morning commuter traffic is generated by parents driving their children to school. These travel habits and children's life style choices can have serious consequences. Traffic jams around our schools foul the air, waste fuel, and create safety problems for children. The Surgeon General recently reported that 13 percent of children aged six to eleven years and 14 percent of adolescents aged 1 2 to 1 9 years were overweight in 1 999. This prevalence has nearly tripled in the past two decades for adolescents. In recent years, a growing number of communities in the nation are promoting school children walking to school with groups from health professional, Smart Growth advocates, traffic safety group, local PTA, and elected officials supporting these initiatives. Some states have passed legislation instituting "Safe Routes to Schools" programs to encourage school children to walk or bike to school. The primary emphasis of these programs is to provide children with an opportunity to walk or bike to school in a safe, secure environment. The North Carolina Department of Transportation, too, recognizes the need to improve the safety of students who walk or bike to school. In recent years, a number of initiatives to enhance bicycle and pedestrian safety around schools have been undertaken by the Department’s Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation and the Municipal and School Transportation Assistance Program of the Traffic Engineering Unit. These efforts include facility improvements, training initiatives, technical assistance, and research. SCOPE OF WORK The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation initiated a project to research the potential for development of standardized school walk zone policies for the state. The School Transportation Group of the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University (ITRE) and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) were selected to undertake the study. The resulting effort included the following activities: The compilation of the existing policies of North Carolina public schools for walk zones; descriptions of the school commute patterns through surveys of all North Carolina Local Education Agencies (LEAs); an analysis of North Carolina pedestrian/motor vehicle crash data; and, focus group meetings with parents and school officials who have local transportation policy and operations responsibilities; the review of school walk zone guidelines, policies, and practices developed by other states and municipalities, and the definition of focus areas and development of specific recommendations. Local Education Agencies (LEA) Surveys In general, public schools in North Carolina do not have guidelines for establishing school walk zones. Furthermore, there is no established definition for walk zones. For most districts, "walk zone" refers to a "no transport" zone in which students do not receive public-funded pupil transportation, and as a result, students make the school commute by walking, bicycling, or riding in a private motor vehicle. A minority of districts define walk zone as being areas in which guidelines suggest walking routes for students that are based on proven safety and accessibility criteria. Survey responses indicated that the 1 .5 mile "no transportation required" zone around a given school, established by state law, has significant influence in the definition of a "walkable" distance by a school district. Only about 12 percent of the 74 districts that completed the surveys actually have established walk zone guidelines, and there is little consensus among and within the districts concerning the official(s) responsible for approving these guidelines. School districts identified factors related to the fundamental design of the transportation infrastructure, such as the existence of sidewalks, traffic volume, and number of roadway lanes, as the most important factors for establishing safe walk zones in their district. Focus Groups The project team conducted a total of six focus groups in Fayetteville, Winston-Salem/Greensboro, and Greenville. Two sessions were held in each location with one consisting of parents and another made up of school officials with responsibility for the policies and operations of the local pupil transportation systems. In general, the parents expressed belief that personal safety, dangerous vehicle traffic, and poor pedestrian street designs