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Children’s mode choice for the school trip: the role of distance and school location in walking to school

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Abstract

Rising levels of childhood obesity in the United States and a 75% decline in the proportion of children walking to school in the past 30 years have focused attention on school travel. This paper uses data from the US Department of Transportation’s 2001 National Household Travel Survey to analyze the factors affecting mode choice for elementary and middle school children. The analysis shows that walk travel time is the most policy-relevant factor affecting the decision to walk to school with an estimated direct elasticity of −0.75. If policymakers want to increase walking rates, these findings suggest that current policies, such as Safe Routes to School, which do not affect the spatial distribution of schools and residences will not be enough to change travel behavior. The final part of the paper uses the mode choice model to test how a land use strategy—community schools—might affect walking to school. The results show that community schools have the potential to increase walking rates but would require large changes from current land use, school, and transportation planning practices.

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Notes

  1. The definition of “reasonable” was based on the data. Any walking trips with an average speed of 16 kph (10 mph, the 93rd percentile) or driving trips of 80 kph (50 mph, the 95th percentile) were removed from the sample.

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Acknowledgements

Preparation of this paper was supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Active Living Research program, the University of California Transportation Center, and the U.S. Department of Transportation Eisenhower Fellowship. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Nancy McGuckin and Susan Liss from the Federal Highway Administration who tirelessly answered all my questions about the NHTS. I thank Elizabeth Deakin, Martin Wachs, and anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments on previous drafts.

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  1. Department of City & Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, New East Building CB #3140, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3140, USA

    Noreen C. McDonald

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Correspondence to Noreen C. McDonald.

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McDonald, N.C. Children’s mode choice for the school trip: the role of distance and school location in walking to school. Transportation 35, 23–35 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-007-9135-7

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