Discussion / Com parison

DISCUSSION / COMPARISON

Results from both the parent surveys and student tallies are comparable, and besides the question addressing mode shift, did not contradict one another. The similarities of the results between both data collection instruments reinforce the credibility and reliability of the final results.

Distance from home to the school appears to be the predominant factor as to whether students either walk or bike, or take a motorized mode to and from school. Distance was also the main barrier cited by parents who currently do not allow their children to walk or bicycle, as to why they do not allow their child to walk or bicycle to and from school. This should not come as a surprise. After distance, safety factors such as traffic speed and volume were chosen more frequently as barriers to children walking or biking to school, more so than crime or violence. While parents’ real and/or perceived safety concerns with walking and biking to school should not be dismissed, for those that live within the Walk / Bike Zone of the Ogema School, those concerns are not insurmountable barriers.

Additional findings indicate that walking and biking to school is already fairly common for a possible 33 percent of PK-4 students that live within the one-half mile Walk / Bike Zone. It is difficult to know for sure since the sample size of students living within one-half mile of the school was so small, however the findings suggest that there is an opportunity to increase walking and bicycling to school for those students that live within one-half mile from school. All students living further than one-half mile from the school travel to and from school by motorized modes, which is to be expected.

While the results from the parent surveys and student travel tallies provide valuable baseline data, several limitations exist. The parent survey was self-reported information, which may self select and bias the results to a socially desirable response. Furthermore, the three-day time frame for student travel tallies, taken only during one school week out of the entire year, limits the likelihood of collecting data in all weather conditions. Additional analysis, particularly a second student travel tally at a different time of the year would be helpful to better understand student travel behaviors and how the weather influences travel mode decisions.

P a g e 80 | Chapter 8: Standardized SRTS Survey Analysis