Understanding parental support for infrastructure and policy changes that encourage active travel among children

Introduction

Creating a safe environment for active travel is regarded as necessary to encourage greater uptake, particularly for children. Doing so, however, may be politically challenging due to perceived community opposition. This study explored parental support for active travel infrastructure and policy changes, and differences by socio-demographic characteristics and child travel characteristics.

Methods

Through an online survey, Victorian (Australia) parents (n = 917) of children in grades 3–6 reported their level of support for 11 policy and infrastructure initiatives, postcode (to determine area-level disadvantage and urbanicity), age, gender, highest level of education, household car ownership, child's active school travel, child's bike access, distance from home to school, and whether they spoke a language other than English at home and were born outside Australia (cultural and linguistic diversity (CaLD)). The proportion of parents indicating support for each initiative was calculated. Ordinal logistic regression examined differences in support by key characterises, with all socio-demographic and travel characteristics entered simultaneously.

Results

Almost all participants were female (88%), 20.3% lived in an area of most-disadvantage, 9.3% were CaLD and 32.4% had one or no household vehicle. Over 80% supported: additional road crossings around schools, more drop-off zones within walking distance of schools, wider footpaths allowing for a mix of users, and separated bike lanes. Initiatives that received the least support (less than 60%) related to changes in the roads around schools, including banning cars at drop-off and pick-up times and converting roads to shared streets or one-way traffic. Greater support for several key initiatives was found among respondents in areas of more disadvantage, who were CaLD, and who had one or no household vehicle.

Conclusion

Parents were supportive of the initiatives. The least supported initiatives were those that restricted car travel. These findings can inform future infrastructural changes to support active travel.