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ABSTRACT
The school setting and proximal neighborhoods have recently been the focus of policies and infrastructure investments aimed at creating more child-friendly cities that encourage youth physical activity. Examples of these efforts in the US are the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program and greenway projects. The extant literature has addressed active travel to school and greenways as discrete research topics, creating a gap in the literature that combines these efforts to determine if greenways can serve as an environmental support for youth active travel to school. This study fills this gap by examining the potential of greenways as SRTS infrastructure. The national SRTS survey was adapted to explore if and how high school and elementary school students in a traditionally underserved, predominately Latino community, use an urban greenway to travel to school. The survey results reveal that greenways may make it easier and safer for students to walk or bike to school as compared to using the often inadequate sidewalk and street infrastructure. In terms of policy implications, evidence from this study suggests that greenway interventions near schools may be a viable infrastructure improvement strategy to create more child-friendly cities.
Graphical Abstract
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the wonderful support of the City of Whittier, school administrators, teachers, parents, and students. We would also like to recognize graduate student Michelle Teller for adding respondents’ addresses to the map. We would like to thank our reviewers for their time and helpful advice that has made this a stronger paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Crystal Taylor
Crystal Taylor is a visiting scholar of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. Her healthy communities work focuses on addressing health disparities that impact vulnerable populations by promoting access to community amenities and advocating for inclusive policies. She is passionate about sustainable innovative projects that span from the urban core of our cities, to the suburbs, through agricultural lands, and connect to wilderness areas.
Christopher Coutts
Christopher Coutts is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. Professor Coutts’s research examines the influence of the built environment and ecologically-sensitive land use practices on community health and health behavior.
