Resource Library

This article examines the role smart growth can play in achieving planning objectives, including energy conservation and emission reductions. It summarizes existing literature on land use impacts on travel activity, energy consumption and pollution emissions. It examines claims that smart growth policies are ineffective and harmful.

This paper investigates pedestrian exposure to traffic emissions at the Marylebone Road–Gloucester Place intersection in central London, taking a particular interest in the peak exposures occurring within minutes.

KEY TAKEAWAY:

There are disparities in physical activity and academic achievement among urban minority school-aged children, and improving physical activity and fitness in schools, especially through active transportation to school, could be a strategy for improving academic achievement among this group.

KEY TAKEAWAY:

This study demonstrated improved academic performance following implementation of physically active academic lessons.

This webinar will be an excellent resource for those who have not yet attained a bicycle fleet to those who are looking for pointers on how to better organize and upkeep their existing fleets.

This article aims to supplement scarce research on the children’s attitudes to cars and the environment. Assuming that attitudes to cars develop in childhood, this article draws upon the writing assignments and interviews exploring the upper-elementary school children’s attitudes to cars.

An extensive body of research exists on environmental influences on weight-related behaviors in young people. Existing reviews aimed to synthesize this body of work, but generally focused on specific samples, behaviors or environmental influences and integration of findings is lacking.

Emerging frameworks to examine active school transportation (AST) commonly emphasize the built environment (BE) as having an influence on travel mode decisions.

As childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions, it is critical to devise interventions that target the root causes of obesity and its risk factors. 

Neighborhood walkability can influence physical activity. This study evaluated the validity of Walk Score for assessing neighborhood walkability based on GIS (objective) indicators of neighborhood walkability with addresses from four US metropolitan areas with several street network buffer distances (i.e., 400-, 800-, and 1,600-meters).

Walking to school is an important source of physical activity among children. There is a paucity of research exploring environmental determinants of walking to school among children in urban areas.

This study evaluated the growing literature on the built environment and physical activity and obesity by conducting a review of review papers. They analyzed research gaps and areas of improvement identified by previous reviews and propose a research agenda.

This study assesses the reliability and validity of the U.S. National Center for Safe Routes to School’s in-class student travel tallies and written parent surveys. Over 65,000 tallies and 374,000 parent surveys have been completed, but no published studies have examined their measurement properties.

A growing number of studies have examined correlates of walking-to/from-school behaviors. However, the potential differences across neighborhoods have been understudied.

Research examining the association between environmental attributes and physical activity among youth is growing. An updated review of literature is needed to summarize the current evidence base, and to inform policies and environmental interventions to promote active lifestyles among young people.

Spatial distribution of children’s school commute behavior was analyzed from three perspectives that are: 1) commuting to school independently of parents, 2) commuting to school by active modes and 3) allocation of escorting tasks for children between mother and father.

Street-scale urban design policies are recommended to increase physical activity in communities; thus, this study examines U.S. public support for such policies.

Recreational facility availability has been shown to associate positively with youth physical activity levels. Nonetheless, little is known about additional facility characteristics affecting their use for physical activity as well as differences between private and public facilities.

This paper reviews trends in cycling levels, safety, and policies in Canada and the USA over the past two decades.

This study examined relationships between greenness exposure and free-living physical activity behavior of children in smart growth and conventionally designed communities.