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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Walking is a more common transport mode to schools than cycling among adolescents in many countries worldwide. Adolescents and their parents have different perceptions of walking versus cycling to school. This study compared adolescents' perceptions of school neighbourhood built environment characteristics for walking versus cycling to school.
Methods: Adolescents familiar with their school neighbourhoods (n=411; age: 15.0±1.2 years; 31% males) from six secondary schools in Dunedin, New Zealand, completed an online survey about their travel to school and perceptions of their school neighbourhood environment for walking and cycling to school.
Results: Overall, 33% of adolescents walked to school, and only 1% cycled. For walking to school, most adolescents perceived multiple walking routes, enough footpaths and crosswalks/signals for pedestrians, good street lighting along routes and many diverse destinations to go to within walking distance in their school neighbourhood. Approximately two-thirds of adolescents reported high traffic speed along the walking routes in their school neighbourhood. For cycling to school, most adolescents perceived multiple cycling routes to school and high traffic speed in their school neighbourhood. Nearly half of adolescents perceived availability of crosswalks/signals for cyclists, good street lighting along the cycling routes and many diverse destinations to go within cycling distance in their school neighbourhoods. Less than half of adolescents reported enough cycle paths in their school neighbourhoods, high traffic volume, hilly streets, slippery routes, high level of noise from cars, and many interesting things to look at along the cycling routes to school. Compared with walking, adolescents reported that their school neighbourhood environments provided less support for cycling to school, including fewer crossings/signals for cyclists versus pedestrians (53% vs 69%; p<0.001), fewer streetlights (cycling vs walking; 58% vs 70%; p<0.001) and fewer destinations within easy cycling versus walking distance from their school (66% vs 50%; p<0.001). Compared with cycling, more adolescents reported enough footpaths than cycle paths (78% vs 42%; p<0.001) in their school neighbourhoods. Active transport users perceived lower traffic volume, higher traffic speed, and fewer hilly streets along the walking and cycling routes to school than motorised and mixed transport users (all p<0.05).
Conclusions: Adolescents perceived their school neighbourhoods to be more supportive of walking than cycling to school. Future active transport interventions in school neighbourhoods need to be tailored to address walking- and/or cycling-specific barriers, including built environment and traffic safety in a local context.
Keywords: SR2S
Language: en |