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Chapter 8 - How Does Families’ Daily Mobility between Home and School Change with the Trottibus, a Walking School Bus Program in Quebec, Canada?
- Edited by Zoe Moody, University of Teacher Education Valais, Switzerland and Université de Genève, Ayuko Berchtold-Sedooka, Université de Genève, Sara Camponovo, Université de Genève, Philip D. Jaffé, Université de Genève, Frédéric Darbellay, Université de Genève
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- Book:
- School Journey as a Third Place
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 14 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 07 March 2023, pp 171-186
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Summary
Introduction
The journey from home to school is one of the most frequent commutes in kids’ life, starting as soon as four years old in many countries. Accordingly, much research has been done in the past decades, addressing various dimensions of these journeys, from pedestrian injuries, to the preferred mode of transportation and their related physical (in)activity, to pollution exposure on the way. Using a case study in Québec, a province of Canada, this chapter aims to better understand the impacts of an active transportation initiative – the Canadian Cancer Society’s (CCS) walking school bus (WSB) programme on families’ daily mobility. The chapter is divided in four parts. The first two look at the literature on the decline of active transportation to school and initiatives to reverse it, including WSB programmes around the western world. The third part presents the results from the case study, while the last section briefly introduces a few insights related to this significant topic: the journey to school as a third space.
The Decline of Active Transportation to School
Although the potential benefits associated with using non-motorised modes of transportation for travel to and from school, walking to school has declined since the 1970s, especially in western countries. In the United States, from 1969 to 2009, the percentage of trips walked or biked to school dropped from 41% to 13% according to the National Personal Transportation Survey data (McDonald et al. 2011). In Toronto, the most populated city in Canada, the walking mode share for school trips declined from 53% to 43% between 1986 and 2006 for children between 11 and 13 years (Buliung et al. 2009). Similar trends were observed in Sydney, Australia, where 58% of younger children (5–9 years old) walked to school in 1971, a proportion reduced to 26% in the 1999–2003 Household Travel Survey (van der Ploeg et al. 2008). More recently, a study in four European territories (Czech Republic, Norway, Scotland and Wales) found stable rates of active transport (walking, biking) to school between 2006 and 2018, a reassuring trend despite variations between countries (55% to 30% on average) (Haug et al. 2021).
4 - Walking in the city: seniors’ experience in Canada and France
- Edited by Maxwell Hartt, Cardiff University, Samantha Biglieri, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Mark Rosenberg, Queen's University, Ontario, Sarah Nelson, University of Toronto
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- Book:
- Aging People, Aging Places
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 December 2021
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2021, pp 51-72
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Summary
In Canada, as well as in other Western countries, mobility, defined as the ability to move between different activity sites, tends to decrease past 65 years old for all modes of transportation, even if today's elderly are more motorized than before (Armoogum et al, 2010; Turcotte, 2012; Böcker et al, 2017). Accordingly, seniors’ mobility is characterized by a decrease in the number of trips and distances travelled to reach those activity sites (grocery stores, library, friend's home, etc), a situation worsened by the loss of their driving licence (Lord et al, 2009a, 2009b; Chapon, 2010). Moreover, there is little attention given to seniors’ mobility experience outside of the actual, quantitatively measured, travel behaviour (Franke et al, 2019). Walking is therefore essential as an alternative mode of travel to nearby destinations and its promotion is a way to perpetuate seniors’ socialization and greater autonomy, a guarantee of healthy aging. A recent article on accessibility to retail activities in Spain highlighted again the importance of taking into account seniors in our mobility planning. The authors found that willingness to reach retail stores on foot by seniors (>65 years old) was significantly different from other population sub-groups, potentially contributing to social exclusion (Arranz-López et al, 2019). Long neglected to the benefit of the automobile, walking, a non-polluting mode of transport beneficial to health, is today revalorized in urban policies, particularly in major cities. However, this encouragement to walk should be based on an assessment of the safety and comfort of built urban environments in order to better document the (in) adequacy between the walking environment and the needs and travel habits of elderly pedestrians.
Walkability and aging
Research on walkability has been abundant in recent decades, but several authors point out the lack of consensus on the definition of this concept; it is used to encompass all the measurement of the walking environment, including environmental features, but also the experience of pedestrians in such environments (Lo, 2009; Forsyth, 2015). While in North America this concept is linked to a movement seeking to promote physical activity through ‘active’ modes of transport, it is rather seen as a solution for environmental problems (air pollution in cities) in European countries (Huguenin-Richard et al, 2014). The numerous methods found within this body of literature can be categorized under three methodological approaches, some of the research combining them in walkability indexes.