Electronic PA News from the Deb Spicer at the Department of Health

1. Victoria Transportation Policy Institute Reports
2. Resources Available from VERB
3. Mean Streets Report
4. National Trails Conference - Call for Papers
5. School Buildings and Location
6. Perceptions of Neighborhood Environment for Physical Activity
7. Walking Program for African American Women
8. National Bicycling and Walking Study

1. VICTORIA TRANSPORTATION POLICY INSTITUTE REPORTS
 
The Victoria Transportation Policy Institute has updated several of its
reports:
 
Economic Value of Walkability
This paper describes ways to evaluate the value of walking (the activity)
and walkability (the quality of walking conditions, including safety,
comfort and convenience). Walking and walkability provide a variety of
economic, social and environmental benefits. More comprehensive analysis
tends to justify increased support for walking and other nonmotorized modes
of travel.
 
"Understanding Smart Growth Savings: What We Know About Public
Infrastructure and Service Cost Savings, And How They are Misrepresented By
Critics"
Various studies show that Smart Growth can save hundreds of dollars
annually per capita compared with providing comparable public services to
sprawled destinations. Most current development charges, utility fees and
taxes fail to accurately reflect these location-related cost differences,
representing a subsidy of sprawl. This paper summarizes estimates of Smart
Growth savings, and critiques claims that such savings are insignificant.
 
"Licenses Take A Back Seat: As High Schools Cut Driver's Education, Fewer
Teens Are Getting Behind The Wheel," Los Angeles Times, By Shawn Hubler,
December 2, 2004, front page;

 
This fascinating article indicates that a declining portion of U.S.
teenagers are licensed to drive (from 52% of teens in 1992 to 42% in 2002),
and that automobiles are becoming less important to young people. (Thanks
 
2. RESOURCES AVAILABLE FROM VERB.
 
Activity Kit for Middle Schools Features Cultural Games and Chance to win
$1,000 Grant
VERB and Weekly Reader have partnered to produce the "Play Without Borders"
activity kit specially for middle schools. The free kit is available now
while supplies last. Each kit contains a guide that helps teachers
introduce students to games from around the world and includes Playports
for 150 students that can be stamped when students try new games and create
their own play -- without borders. Use the kit with your class and then
apply to win one of 50 $1,000 grants sponsored by Weekly Reader in support
of VERB. Grant applications are due January 13, 2005. To order your kit
visit www.cdc.gov/VERB and click on "Materials," then click in the call-out
box.
 
3. MEAN STREETS REPORT
2004 Report
 

4. NATIONAL TRAILS CONFERENCE - CALL FOR PAPERS
 
Proposals continue to be accepted for presentations at TrailLink 2005,
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's international trails and greenways
conference, coming to Minneapolis/St. Paul on July 27-30, 2005. The
deadline for submissions is December 15, 2004. If you're interested in
joining us in Minnesota as a speaker, please visit the conference Web site:
http://www.railtrails.org/traillink2005
 
5. SCHOOL BUILDINGS AND LOCATION
 
Perhaps the most influential advocate for "sprawl schools" was the Council
of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI), an Arizona-based professional
association that issues guidance on school construction. According to
standards that were in place from the 1970s until very recently, an
elementary school of 500 students requires 15 acres, and a high school of
2,000 would need at least 50 acres. By contrast, older neighborhood schools
occupy two to eight acres. Those existing schools themselves were
disadvantaged by the so-called two-thirds rule used by CEFPI and others: If
the cost to rehab a school exceeds 60 percent of cost of replacement, build
a new school. Building anew at the "proper" size means either razing nearby
buildingsÑwhich is prohibitively expensiveÑor moving the school out of the
neighborhood. According to a South Carolina study, school site size has
increased in every decade since 1950, and schools built in the last 20
years are 41 percent larger than those built previously.
 
"The problem has been that, in order to meet those standards, given the
cost and availability of land, school officials feel the need to abandon
neighborhood sites and build in the middle of nowhere," said Constance
Beaumont, author of "Why Johnny Can't Walk to School," a report by the
National Trust for Historic Preservation that was among the first to
address the issue of school sprawl.
 
There are signs that the tide is beginning to turn in some states, Beaumont
noted. Maryland now prioritizes rehab and construction in urbanized areas,
rather than building schools in greenfields. In the last few years, 80
percent of construction money went to reconstruction and rehab, versus 25
percent in the mid-1990s. In California, a program called Safe Routes to
School earmarks one-third of federal road-safety money for improvements
around schools, creating safe crossings, adding sidewalks and bikeways,
etc. The program has been so popular that a version of it has been included
in proposed federal legislation.
 
Others are taking a closer look at the trade-offs involved. In Oregon a
study in the Bend-La Pine district found that, compared to sites on the
metro fringe, "sites in higher density neighborhoods decreased total
transportation costs by 32 percent annually and lowered site development
costs by 14 percent". As a result, this fall the district opened Ensworth
Elementary School, a compact, two-story prototype neighborhood school
designed and located so that all of its 300 students can walk or bike. And
nearly all do, said Beaumont, who now works for Oregon's transportation and
growth management program.
 
Large, new schools built in a previously undeveloped area often act as a
magnet for new residential development, drawing people and resources away
from existing schools and neighborhoods.
 
Perhaps most significantly, CEFPI itself recently unveiled "Creating
Connections," a re-examination of its siting guidelines that puts an
emphasis on viewing schools in the larger community context. (Find it on
the web at: http://www.cefpi.org:80/creatingconnections/index.html  
Small Schools
 
The return of the neighborhood school is getting a large boost from a
growing body of research demonstrating the benefits of smaller school
environments. The research has been motivated at one end by the concerns of
rural communities that are seeing their local schools closed in a wave of
consolidation, and at the other by advocates for smaller, more manageable
schools in low-income, urban areas.
 
So what have they found? Smaller schools have lower drop-out rates and
higher average scores on standardized tests. Children in high-poverty
schools see an even more pronounced improvement. While it's true that
larger schools generally do show a small savings on spending per student,
when that figure is computed for students who actually graduate, the per-
graduate cost per student actually is slightly lower. Larger schools can
have more extracurricular offerings, but participation in after-school
activities declines as schools get larger. A U.S. Department of Education
report found that schools with over 1,000 students have much higher rates
of crime and vandalism than schools with 300 or fewer students. And teacher
satisfaction is higher in smaller schools, according to a Chicago study.
(You can find links to much of the research online at:
http://www.smallschoolsworkshop.org/info3.html#8
 
6. PERCEPTIONS OF NEIGHBORHOOD ENVIRONMENT FOR PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
One thousand seventy-three African American (46.6%) and Caucasian (53.4%)
adults aged 18-65 in metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri participated in a
survey assessing what influences a person's perception of physical activity
opportunities in their neighborhood. The participants completed a
self-administered questionnaire and neighborhood characteristics (race,
home values, use of public transportation, etc.) were obtained from the
2000 US Census. Both individual characteristics and neighborhood
characteristics are significant predictors of a person's perception of the
physical activity opportunities in their neighborhood. Regardless of the
neighborhood characteristics, African-Americans rated their neighborhoods
low in regards to safety and pleasantness for physical activity
opportunities suggesting a need to improve aesthetics and safety of
existing physical activity opportunities in addition to introducing new
opportunities. Boslaugh, Luke, Brownson, Naleid, Kreuter. "Perceptions of
neighborhood environment for physical activity: is it 'who you are' or
'where you live' ?" J Urban Health, 81(4):671-81,2004.
 
7. WALKING PROGRAM FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN This program, entitled
BWHOLE - Black Women & Health Outreach for Longer Life & Empowerment, was
established in 1997 to provide a link for connecting Black women in the
greater Pittsburgh area to health information, resources, support, advocacy
and sisterhood. Since its inception, the program has sponsored the Walking
Divas initiative, designed to create a support system through which Black
women of all backgrounds are encouraged to increase their level of physical
activity by regularly walking. Similar initiatives have been developed in
five additional fitness and sports areas - bicycling, bowling, golfing,
softball, and swimming. More than 400 women presently participate in the
BWHOLE program and a similar program - BWHOLE Juniors - is being developed
for younger Black women. This program is supported by many African
American churches in the greater Pittsburgh area. For further information
on BWHOLE, please contact one if its cofounders, Ms. Angela Ford, Associate
Director at the Center for Minority Health, University of Pittsburgh. She
may be reached at afford@cmh.pitt.edu. If you have any further questions,
please feel free to contact:
 
Kevin A. Alvarnaz
Chief, Cardiovascular Health Section
Division of Chronic Disease Intervention
Bureau of Chronic Diseases & Injury Prevention
Pennsylvania Department of Health
PO Box 90, Room 1011
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17108-0090
 
8. NATIONAL BICYCLING AND WALKING STUDY
Subtitled, "Ten Year Status Report;" October 2004 Report prepared for FHWA
by the Highway Safety Research Center, UNC-Chapel Hill.
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/pdf/NBWS_10yr_Progress_Report.pdf
 

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