1. Background

The long term goal of the KFL&A Public Health School Health Team's Active Transportation strategy is to increase the number of individuals who routinely use active transportation as a part of their daily lives.

The short term objectives are: 1) to increase awareness of the health, safety, and environmental benefits of active transportation among students, families and school staff in KFL&A, and 2) to increase the number of individuals using active transportation to get to and from school.

The School Health Team promotes several activities to elementary schools to increase the number of students using active transportation to get to and from school. These activities include, but are not limited to, promoting the Walking School Bus and Walk to Whistler, and assisting schools to install bike racks.

In order to monitor progress towards the short term objectives and ultimately the long term goal, the School Team was interested in finding a suitable indicator. The most obvious indicator is to measure whether there is a change in the number of students using active transportation over time. This pilot was a result of discussions with KFL&A program staff on the most effective and efficient method of measuring elementary school children's active transportation levels.