Exeter Township Focus

Neighborhood Design
The positioning of homes, schools, businesses, parks, and sidewalks within a neighborhood can influence physical activity. Neighborhood design typically considers 4 land uses: residential, industrial, green space, and institutional (eg, schools). Sprawling urban design has less mixing of these types (or less "land-use mix"). Figure 1 illustrates this distinction. Houses and apartments in the lower section of the diagram (the traditional neighborhood) are closer to other types of destinations such as the school or the mall, and the houses in the upper section (suburban sprawl) are more isolated. This figure also demonstrates a second core concept from urban planning known as "connectivity," or the ease of moving between origins (eg, home and work).³⁵ Street grids with many intersections provide many options for navigating to a destination.³⁶ In the low-density upper part of the diagram, although there are houses that are not far from the school "as the crow flies," getting to the school requires winding out of the enclave of houses to a busy main road. Thus, a child who lives close to school may still find walking to school prohibitive.

FIGURE 1 Comparison of street networks and land use in sprawled (upper) and traditional (lower) neighborhoods. Source: Drawing by Duany Plater Zyberk as shown in Spielberg F. The traditional neighborhood development: how will traffic engineers respond? ITE J. 1989;59:17.

Air pollution exposure has been associated with the development and exacerbation of asthma in children.^46-48 Although physical activity is a positive aspect of outdoor play, it is important to recognize that time spent outdoors can make a child more vulnerable to ambient air pollution. Direct exposure to vehicle exhaust can affect a child's health, and higher urban density theoretically can increase one's daily exposure to vehicle exhaust and street traffic. Conversely, low-density sprawl promotes vehicle dependence and long-distance commuting, thus threatening air quality of the population at large. Children will benefit from planning that actively promotes outdoor play and walking while addressing the negative health effects of traffic and air pollution.

Higher housing density with increased land-use mix is a design strategy that promotes more physical activity among residents. However, there are other hybridized approaches that include creative design solutions that blend the benefits of connected streets with green space that is protected from automobile traffic. A street block plan can have "shared outdoor space,"⁴⁹ set aside within the heart of a cluster of residences. In this plan, front entrances of homes face the street and the back entrances face the shared outdoor spaces, which are accessible only to the residents. This design promotes a separation of outdoor recreational areas from traffic and an increased sense of ability to supervise children while preserving the community's ability to fit well onto a traditional grid of streets, which promotes walking to nearby destinations.

Walking to School
The most universal opportunity for incidental physical activity among children is in getting to and from school. Walking or biking to school has not yet been documented to lower BMI,⁵⁰ but it is a valuable opportunity for activity⁵¹ and promotes higher levels of physical activity in boys.⁵² Among middle-school girls in the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG) study, every mile that a girl lived farther from school translated to significantly fewer minutes of metabolic activity per week.⁵³ Closer proximity to school also provides the opportunity for use of school grounds for physical activity in after-school hours, and researchers have shown that provision of an open (supervised) school yard led to increased levels of physical activity and less television and video game use.⁵⁴

In 1969, 40.7% of all American children walked to school. Currently, approximately 12.9% of all American children walk to school,⁵⁵ and in some areas as few as 5% of children walk to school.⁵⁶ Two national telephone surveys, HealthStyles in 1999⁵⁷ and ConsumerStyles in 2004,⁵⁸ queried parents about what barriers prevented their children from walking to school. The most commonly cited reason from those surveys and from the National Personal Transportation Survey from 1969-2001⁵⁵ was that the school was too far away.

School Sprawl
Suburbanization and decisions about school siting are important determinants of why children now live so far from school. Historically, small neighborhood schools served as "anchors" within the community and places for after-school programs, for social and recreational gathering, and as disaster shelters.⁵⁹ However, after the 1950s, many states established policies on the size and location of school buildings that influenced school siting. According to those guidelines, to receive state funding, schools had to have a minimum acreage (eg, elementary schools needed to be on at least 10 acres), and more students translated to larger required school-grounds size (eg, an extra acre for every 100 students).^8,60 Because untapped acreage sufficient to meet these standards is most often at the edge of an urban area, neighborhood schools (typically only 2-8 acres in size)⁶⁰ were frequently demolished or closed in favor of "big-box schools" at the outskirts of cities. Recommendations on school size from the Council of Education Facilities Planners International (CEFPI) were revised in 2004⁶¹ and no longer recommend a minimum acreage. There is increasing interest in supporting smaller schools,⁶² but change to policies on school land size occurs slowly. It is also important to acknowledge that there may be some trade-offs to consider regarding school size and physical activity. There is some research suggesting that larger school campuses, buildings, and play areas may promote youth physical activity during the school day.⁶³

Distance is, of course, not the only barrier preventing children from walking or biking to school. A recent nationally representative study found that even among children who lived within 1 mile of school, less than half walk to school even 1 day/week. The proportion of children walking to school was the lowest among those living in the South, those living in a rural area, or those whose parent had an advanced degree.⁶⁴ The ConsumerStyles survey determined that parents' foremost concern was distance from school, followed by concerns about danger from traffic and crime, weather, and other miscellaneous factors.⁵⁸ These barriers are important, because they may prevent children not only from walking and biking to school but also from getting other physical activity in their neighborhood. To address these concerns about children's commutes to school, schools and parents in many US cities have organized a "walking school bus."⁶⁵ A walking school bus is created when groups of schoolchildren, supervised by volunteer adults, walk together through the neighborhood to "pick up" other children waiting with a parent at designated "bus stops." These programs represent an example of practical solutions to address concerns about environment and safety.

Complete Streets as a Viable Option for the 422 Corridor

             I.      Pedestrian and Bicycle (Non-motorized Task Force), Seeking to Benefit the Community in

·         Economy

·         Social Interactions

·         Environmental Protection

·         Health and well-being of our citizens

          II.      Accomplishments:

·         Posted Group and Public Interest on Township Website (Thank You)

·         Provided Link to WalkBikeBerks Blog  (Thank You)

·         Created Sidewalk Map (Thank you, Eric. )  This map gives us our starting place, highlighting both the areas that are safest for pedestrians as well as those areas that lack complete infrastructure.  I have that map here tonight.  We hope to add to it:  the population density that Cheryl and Eric demonstrated at the Joint Meeting as well as the lines reflecting the districting of each school.  This will allow us to focus our energy on creating Safe Routes for the most children for each single project.

·         Clarence Hamm is working with us to prioritize 1. No Cost Projects (Free Pedestrian Signs from PennDOT, etc.)  2.  Low or minimal cost projects  (Painting bold crosswalks and shoulder lines, etc.)  3.  Moderate Cost Projects (Improving or Connecting existing sidewalks and trails)  4.  High/Intensive Work Projects (Retrofitting old neighborhoods with sidewalks, curbs, etc. for zones such as those that would be involved if we improved Jacksonwald Elementary)

--Clarence can speak to those plans for a moment.

·         I have written a letter to the Dr. Martin, Superintendent of the Exeter School District as well as to each of the elementary school principals requesting their support and participation in a Safe Routes to School Campaign and International Walk To School Day.  I am waiting to hear back from them.  Dr. Martin did give me her contact information to follow-up with her as well as contact information for their grant-writing expert.  I hope that the Township’s grant-writing expert and he could work together to bring that money to our children.

• Our primary goal for Safe Routes To School and Complete Streets is to increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety.  As  mothers and fathers working with the township, we will do whatever we can, however we can to increase the safety and well-being of our children (and all pedestrians).  We are committed to doing everything that we can to support our schools by applying for Safe Routes To School grant money, this year more than $6M will be distributed.

• We will also seek all other funding opportunities that are available to provide the safest, most inviting walkways and bike access to and from schools, within and among neighborhoods and to/from recreational facilities (trails and parks) so that those who want to -- can do so as safely as possible. 

• I want to emphasize that the Police Department, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and the Zoning Officer are working hard to improve our streets and reduce injuries and accidents.  That we will use SRTS funding to create 'traffic calming' infrastructure in and around school zones to protect kids who are at play (during recess or in their own yards), are walking/biking to a friend's house, or to school.  The main and only point I would suggest is:  Let's change our streets in every way necessary to make them safer for kids to live, learn, worship and play in Exeter. 

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