Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence -- Special Report 282 (2005) / Chapter Skim
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4 Contextual Factors Affecting Physical Activity
4 Contextual Factors Affecting Physical Activity
Pages 85-124
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From page 85... ...
It starts with a discussion of the various factors that affect the individual's choices about en gaging in physical activity. The chapter then turns to the institu tional and regulatory forces behind the decisions of planners, engineers, developers, elected officials, and others over the years that have shaped the built environment in place today.
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From page 86... ...
Nevertheless, self-reports and focus groups are the only way to obtain insight into attitudes and motivations that help explain behavior. This type of information is particularly impor tant because the determinants of physical activity behavior are not well understood.
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and exercise or health reasons (24 percent) .4 Survey results 3 The following subsections draw heavily on the commissioned paper prepared for the committee by Kirby and Hollander (2004)
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From page 88... ...
, queried adults aged 18 and older about walking and cycling, among other forms of trans portation, during 20012002.6 [These results should also be inter preted with caution because of problems with response rates and sampling as detailed in a TRB report (2003)
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The positive health effects of physical activity may have been assumed by the survey and focus group respondents, but the results may also re flect the value placed by many people on more immediate benefits, such as those enumerated above. In any event, the market research 8 As with the Gallup surveys, the respondents were asked their primary trip purpose.
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From page 90... ...
As marketers are well aware, beliefs and attitudes are likely to differ across subpopulations. For example, a single mother hold ing two jobs is likely to be motivated to become more physically active by information showing how physical activity can be fit into her busy daily routine, whereas a teenager is likely to be more moti vated by information that physical activity will make her more fit and attractive.
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From page 91... ...
Nevertheless, when asked to recommend changes in their communities, presumably to make walking safer, about one-third of those polled suggested providing pedestrian facilities, such as sidewalks, traffic signals, lighting, and crosswalks. Satisfaction with the cycling environment was considerably lower.
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2004) .12 The Marin County Safe Routes to School Program is a good example of a comprehensive approach to reducing barriers for children walking and cycling to school that appears to be work ing (see Box 4-1)
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The California headquarters for the Safe Routes to School Program also provides materials, tips, and tools for community volunteers and organizations. These include a walk ability checklist, sample letters to parents in 13 languages, a "guide to success" with instructions on how to create a walking school bus and a bike train, and a guide on how to create safe drop-off points for children walking to school (see www.cawalktoschool.com/ dropoff_zones.php)
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From page 94... ...
Time constraints, long distances between destinations, and the mobility afforded by the auto mobile make traveling by personal vehicle the preferred option for many commuters. A recent study of commuting behavior in three neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area -- one urban and two suburban -- attempted to separate the effects of household location preferences from the spatial characteristics of residential neighbor 13As noted earlier, transit, particularly bus transit, requires some walking to access the bus stop.
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(1999) describe the community development model employed in this project, but no longer-term evaluation data could be located.
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However, the differences in commut ing behavior across neighborhoods were greater than those within neighborhoods, which indicates that neighborhood structure it self has an autonomous effect on travel choices. Commuting by personal vehicle strongly prevails in suburban neighborhoods in which residents have fewer mode choices, longer distances to travel, and lifestyle preferences for low-density living.
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. Likewise, a community intervention in Wheeling, West Virginia, targeting sedentary adults aged 50 to 65 found that time and schedule were the major stated deterrents to being physically active (see Box 4-3)
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From page 98... ...
First, the researchers de cided on a specific behavior -- walking -- for a specific target audience- sedentary adults aged 50 to 65 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Initially, most of the programmatic effort was focused on promotion and price variables.
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The kit included a colorful poster and print ad emphasizing that people can be active doing routine activities such as yard work and walking the dog. The kit was designed to help health professionals and community-based organizations identify adults who wanted to be come physically active and reach them with accurate and positive messages that had been tested with the same target audience.
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INSTITUTIONAL AND REGULATORY CONTEXT Whereas the previous section examined the demand for physical activity, this section looks at the supply side of the link between the built environment and physical activity. Specifically, it examines
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. 16The following subsections draw heavily on the commissioned paper prepared for the committee by Meyer and Dumbaugh (2004)
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Early municipal street designs incorporated in guidelines issued by the U.S. Federal Housing Administration in 1935 recommended that residential streets be designed to "dis courage through traffic, have a minimum paved width of 24 feet, use cul-de-sacs17 as much as possible, and avoid excessive planting in the front yards to have a `more pleasing and unified effect along the street' " (FHA 1935)
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From page 103... ...
Such features refer to both the aes thetic appeal and the function of buildings, streetscapes, and public spaces, which can be designed in ways that can encourage walking and transit use, particularly in the neighborhood, but also around work sites. Table 4-1 lists five such urban design features -- density of development, land use mix, street connectivity, street scale, and aesthetic qualities -- and describes how they can be measured.
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within a given area -- no standard measure. Street connectivity The directness and availability of alternative routes from one point to another within a street network -- measured by the number of intersections per square mile, average block length, and so forth.
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have revealed that real estate developers perceive considerable market interest in walkable communities and support developments with greater density and more mixed uses than regulations allow, particularly in inner-suburban areas. A panel discussion with California devel opers yielded evidence of good market support for transit-oriented development projects that involve mixed-use development near transit stations (Smith-Heimer and Golem 2001)
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,19 in stitutional lenders are risk averse. Typically, they look for projects that are compatible with other developments in the local market (i.e., that meet local zoning and subdivision controls)
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Planning for educational facilities is the responsibility of local school boards, which are typically composed of elected repre sentatives. Because nearly all school boards are semiautonomous, they -- not local governments that have a strong interest in the 20Overlay districts are a planning tool providing for special zoning requirements that are an excep tion to the underlying zoning and are tailored to the characteristics of a particular area (e.g., special architectural character)
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One of the approaches used to pro vide a higher level of urban design while maintaining the underly ing zoning is to use overlay zones targeting specific development characteristics. A good example is Portland, Oregon's, Light Rail Transit Station Zone (Portland Metro 2000)
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At a minimum, initiatives such as the previously discussed Safe Routes to School Program could help encourage more walking and cycling to school or walking to school bus stops. Modeling of Transportation Needs All major metropolitan areas are required by the federally sup ported planning process to have a regional transportation model 21A professional organization, the Council for Educational Facilities Planners International, pro vides guidance on school design and construction.
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Overall, regional transportation models generally do a poor job of representing non motorized travel, which can understate the potential role of pedes trian facilities and bicycle paths as well as land use strategies in promoting walking and cycling trips (Meyer and Dumbaugh 2004)
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, although highway engineers are being en couraged by AASHTO and the Federal Highway Administration to interpret the guidelines more flexibly to better accommodate nonmotorized travel. Design guidelines have evolved over the years, and many can ac commodate the designs advocated for nonmotorized travel (Meyer and Dumbaugh 2004)
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From page 112... ...
. Thus, many features compatible with pedestrian and bicycle travel, such as lower vehicle speeds and trees adjacent to the travel way, are viewed as limiting vehicular through put and creating potentially dangerous obstacles should a vehicle leave the road, particularly on higher-speed roads (Meyer and Dumbaugh 2004)
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From page 113... ...
. Nevertheless, AASHTO and the Federal Highway Administration have encouraged engineers to take advantage of existing guidelines by designing more flexibly to accommodate such objectives as nonmotorized travel on certain types of roads (see Meyer and Dumbaugh 2004 for fur ther detail)
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Portland, Oregon, known for its progressive pedestrian orientation, included pedes trian districts as part of its original 1977 Arterial Streets Policy. These districts include special design criteria specifically addressing pedes trian travel (City of Portland 1998)
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. The Institute of Transportation Engineers has devel oped suggested design guidelines for traffic calming measures encompassing applications, design and installation issues, poten tial impacts, and typical costs (ITE 2004)
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Federal funds financed 90 percent of Interstate highway construction, but only 50 to 80 percent of the cost of constructing transit facilities. In addition, projects using federal funds had to incorporate feder ally required design criteria.
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. Another source of funding, particularly for enhancing bicycle and pedestrian safety, is the 402 program administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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2004. The Built Environment and Physical Activity: Empirical Methods and Data Resources.
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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Bureau of Transporta tion Statistics. Duany, A., E
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2004. Consumer Preferences and Social Marketing Ap proaches to Physical Activity Behavior and Transportation and Land Use Choices.
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2004. Institutional and Regulatory Factors Related to Nonmotorized Travel and Walkable Communities.
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1993. Using National Survey Data Incorporating the Theory of Planned Behavior: Implications for Social Marketing Strategies in Phys ical Activity.
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The issue of self-selection bias has only recently been in corporated into research designs. Both longitudinal and cross sectional studies should use analytic approaches that help distin guish the extent to which an observed association between the built environment and physical activity reflects the characteristics of the built environment versus the attitudes and lifestyle prefer ences of those who choose to live in an environment with particu lar characteristics (e.g., walking and bicycle paths)
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From page 124... ...
On the other hand, large surveys that measure phys ical activity and health have been focused primarily on leisure-time physical activity and do not provide information on the location of that activity. Thus, the researcher cannot determine total levels of physical activity or identify where the activity has occurred so these data can be linked with those on the characteristics of the built environment.
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