Case Study: Rural School Accessibility

Schools are a central feature of most any community whether they are in a large city, the suburbs, or a small town. In any case, convenient and safe access to school campuses is an important contributor to a community’s desirability and quality of life. Moreover, access to schools is a good indicator of overall mobility, particularly in small urban and rural communities. Children attending school do not have the ability to drive and are dependent on rides from parents, walking, biking, and transit. Communities in which parents feel comfortable allowing their children to walk and bike regularly as means of transportation probably have relatively complete and well maintained networks of bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

In the Sacramento region the majority, 64%, of children are dropped off at school by an adult. Only 21% report walking or riding a bike to school, and 15% take the school bus or public transit¹. Safety is the primary factor in any parent’s decision to allow their child to walk, bike, or take the bus to school. Factors including crime, suitable infrastructure, and distance all play important roles in a parent’s perception of their child’s safety.

In addition to various air quality and congestion relief benefits gleaned from taking alternative modes of transportation, walking and biking have significant health benefits for both young and old. Among children, promoting walking and biking is important for developing active and healthy lifestyle habits.

Challenges

Rural and small urban communities face a different set of issues than more urbanized areas when it comes to looking at pedestrian and bicycle access to schools. While infrastructure remains a problem in rural areas, distance is often a more important factor than auto traffic or crime in determining transportation choices. However, some children in rural communities still walk or bike up to a few miles to get to school.

Rural roads frequently lack sidewalks or other amenities that make them safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. In many instances, sidewalks are considered undesirable by local residents and other safety precautions need to be considered. The solutions to creating safer rural roads must be sensitive to community preferences and values that are often much different from those in urbanized areas.

Next Steps: Opportunities and Innovations

Perhaps the most logical way of looking at accessibility to a school is to examine the existing bicycle and pedestrian environment surrounding the campus. SACOG is currently developing a tool to measure bicycle and pedestrian friendliness in the urban or rural environment. The Accessibility Index will be useful as a simple tool to help planners prioritize projects by looking for deficiencies in bicycle and pedestrian accessibility.

Figure 1

Figure 1 provides an example of how the index will explore bicycle and pedestrian features within convenient walk/bike distance to a school campus. The City of Live Oak, located in northern Sutter County has a population of approximately 8,000 residents. It is located along the Highway 99 corridor between Yuba City and Chico². The city is home to an elementary, middle, and high school. Luther Elementary is located near the western boundary of the city, north of Pennington Road. As illustrated in Figure 1, it appears that the elementary school is rather accessible by walking or biking. Most of the residential development appears to exist within a 1 mile radius of the school and more than 80% of the roads within the buffer have sidewalks. Pedestrian crossings occur on most intersections of major streets such as Pennington and Larkin as they pass through residential neighborhoods. Finally, bicycle access is available on many of the main through streets. Small residential streets would be expected to be shared roadways without marked bike lanes.

Visualizing the bicycle and pedestrian environment in this way makes finding gaps in service an easier task. It is possible to find potential corridors between neighborhoods and schools where connectivity may be a limiting factor to walking and biking.

In partnership with WalkSacramento, SACOG is exploring the opportunity to utilize a preliminary version of the Accessibility Index to assist with 15 walkability-bikeability audits of schools in unincorporated Sacramento County. The index will explore the use of data such as sidewalks, bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, signage, street lighting, urban density, and adjacent land uses. The ultimate goal is to make the tool useable for all of SACOG’s member agencies to help them create stronger applications for state and federal Safe Routes to Schools Programs.

Further Research

1. What other barriers/challenges do rural schools face in trying to increase walking and biking to school?

1. How can the Accessibility Index be developed to provide real benefit to both rural and urban schools?

1. How can SACOG be of more assistance to rural jurisdictions seeking to improve safety and convenience for students walking to school?