Promoting active student travel: A longitudinal study.

This study investigates the effects of sidewalk modification and bike lane accommodation on students' active travel to schools. The modeling framework assumes that a student's choice for the mode of travel to school is impacted by numerous factors such as neighborhood crime rates, traffic safety, built environment amenities, and socio-demographic factors. A generalized linear model is employed to capture longitudinal changes in the mode share of students who walk or bike to school based on data collected from 53 schools in the city of Seattle, Washington. The modeling results indicate that (1) enhanced sidewalk modifications and bike lane accommodations encourage students walking and biking to school; (2) the implementation of Seattle's student assignment plan helps promote students walking to school possibly due to the change from school choice to neighborhood-based school assignment; (3) the size of the school attendance area is not significantly correlated with students' active travel activities, while the size of school enrollment is negatively associated with walking; (4) in school areas with high employment density, biking to school may be a more attractive option for students; (5) greater crosswalk density may encourage more students to walk to school; (6) the density of bike crashes is negatively associated with students biking to school. In terms of policy implications, transport planners should continually promote walking and biking supportive environments and implement policies to encourage active student travel.