Bicycle Rack Initiative: Appendix B

KFL&A Public Health Bicycle Rack Initiative

Introduction

KFL&A Public Health will work in partnership with local school boards to provide bicycle racks to secondary schools in the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) area in an effort to promote physical activity by encouraging cycling to school. With safe and secure bicycle racks in place in a highly visible area of the school yard, the expectation is that students and staff will be motivated and encouraged to cycle to school. 

Background

Active Transportation is referred to as any means of travel that is human-powered, like walking or cycling Twenty-five years ago, approximately 80% of Canadian children and youth used active transportation to get to school (Hillman, Adams & Whiteless, 1990). Today, only 1/4 to 1/3 of Canadian children and youth use active transportation to travel to and from school (Go For Green, 1998; Active Healthy Kids Canada, 2006). Inactivity, overweight, and obesity in children and youth in modern society are identified as an epidemic by leading health experts and organizations around the world. Active transportation may be one aspect of solution that can address these concerns (Cairns, Sloman, Newson, Anable, Kirkbride & Goodwin, 2004). Additionally, cycling to and from school promotes environmental health by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One barrier to cycling to school is the lack of safe areas to lock bicycles up during the school day (Department of Planning and Infrastructure, n.d.). Abbey Park Secondary School in Oakville,  Ontario addressed this concern by providing bicycle racks in a highly visible area of the school yard. In July 2008, Regan Heffernan, the Principal at Abbey Park Secondary, reported that there was an increase in the number students and staff cycling to school after the installation of the bike racks (D. O'Grady, personal communication, February 6, 2009). KFL&A Public Health aims to experience similar success with a bike rack pilot project at secondary schools in the KFL&A area. 

Project Goal

To provide local secondary schools in Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) with bicycle racks located in a highly visible and safe area of the school yard, thus promoting active transportation by encouraging cycling to school. Project Objectives

• Provide bicycle racks at pilot schools to promote cycling to school.
• Encourage cycling to school at participating pilot schools through awareness-raising and community promotion.
  • Increase the number of students and staff cycling to school on a regular basis.

Target Audience

Our target audience includes the staff and students at participating secondary schools in KFL&A. Community Partners:Limestone District School Board, Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic District School Board 

Evaluation Purpose

The purpose of this impact evaluation is to determine if the installation of bike racks plus the promotion of cycling to school has an effect on the use of cycling as a mode of active transportation to school. The information gained from this evaluation will inform stakeholders' decisions to expand the bike rack installation initiative to other secondary schools in the KFL&A. The stakeholders include KFL&A Public Health, the staff, students and parents of the Limestone District School Board and the Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic District School Board. 

Evaluation Questions

Primary question

Will there be an increase in the number of individuals (students and staff) who rode their bikes to school after the intervention (bike rack installation plus the promotion of cycling to school)? Secondary questionIs the increase in the number of individuals (students or staff) who ride their bikes to school maintained over time?

Secondary question

Is the increase in the number of individuals (students or staff) who ride their bikes to school maintained over time?

The evaluation will use a pretest posttest nonequivalent group design (Table 1). The outcome variable of interest is the number of bicycles on the school property at a given time.  For each observation the data will be collected on three different days.

Table 6: Evaluation design

* = BSS & FSS only; ‡ = all other schools

Sample

Individual schoolcharacteristicswill be collected (Appendix 1).  The schoolswill be randomlyassigned overa5 day collection period (See Table 2for randomassignment).Eachschool will bevisited 3 timespre-intervention, 3timesimmediatelypost intervention, and3 timespostintervention.For the most part, data collection willoccur 4timesduring eachdata collection day.In the morningof each data collection day (09:30), the bike count will occur at two schoolssimultaneously.In the afternoon of each data collection day (14:00), data willoccur at twodifferent schoolssimultaneously.See Appendix 2 for the bike count datacollection form.

Table 7: random assignment of Data collection days/times

See Appendix 3 and 4 for the data collection schedule.

Data analysis

All data will be entered into SPSS Version 15 for Windows.  Pretest to posttest differences in number of bicycles parked on school property will be calculated and compared between the two groups using descriptive statistics. Analysis will also use a repeated measure design.

Limitations

The schools receiving the intervention will be compared to a control school with similar characteristics in terms of size, location (rural versus urban), proportion of students bused etc, however the participating schools many not be able to be matched to control schools on all of these variables.

Active Healthy Kids Canada. (2006). Canada's Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth - 2006. Toronto: Author.

Cairns, S., Sloman, L., Newson, C., Anable, J., Kirkbride, A. & Goodwin, P. (2004). Smarter Choices - Changing the Way we Travel. London: Department for Transport.

Department of Planning and Infrastructure. (n.d.). Cycling fact sheet no. 35: children really benefit from riding to school. Perth: Government of Western Australia.

Go For Green. (1998). National Survey on Active Transportation. Ottawa: Environics International

Hillman M., Adams J., & Whiteless J. (1990). One false move ..... : A study of children's independent mobility. London: Policy Studies Institute.

Data Collection Schedule for BSS and FSS