Spatial Analysis of Child Pedestrian and Bicycle Crashes

Pedestrian and bicycle safety for school-aged children is a particular concern as traffic crashes continue to be a leading cause of death for children 5 to 14 years old. For this concern to be addressed, Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs have been implemented in communities across the country, with one of the primary objectives being to provide safe and convenient routes for children to walk or bike to school. Unfortunately, SRTS programs allocate limited funding for such projects. Consequently, it is imperative that programs are implemented at locations where they are likely to have the greatest impact. The primary focus of this study was to develop a safety Performance function (SPF) for use in prioritizing candidate schools for SRTS programs. Traffic crashes over a 5-year analysis period were examined and linked to data that included the school enrollment, the socioeconomic and demographic data for each school district, and the functional class of the roadway on which each school was located. Schools on local roads were found to experience more crashes than those located on other, higher-class road facilities. Crashes also varied with average family size, number of parents per household, population density, and median family income. Crashes were less frequent in school districts that exhibited greater ethnic diversity. The SPF developed as a part of this research can be used for prioritization of candidate schools as well as to assess the efficacy of SRTS programs on a longitudinal basis and thus provide a valuable tool for school administrators and others involved in child pedestrian and bicycle safety.