Safer Bike Routes in D.C. to Improve Children Health Inequities

Recent­ly, DC’s Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion has been improv­ing the pub­lic bik­ing net­work from 80 miles of bike lanes in 2019 to around 100 miles in 2022 with 60 addi­tion­al miles of trails. The DC Safe Routes to School pro­gram is fund­ed by the Fed­er­al High­way Admin­is­tra­tion and pro­vides improved access to school through increas­ing bike paths and walk­ways.  Expand­ing bike routes means health­i­er options for trans­porta­tion that ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment. Hav­ing more kids bike safe­ly to their desired des­ti­na­tion means low­er­ing their risk from non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble con­di­tions like obe­si­ty. The CDC rec­om­mends an hour of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty every day for kids from ages 6–17 years old, but DC stu­dents fall short of this require­ment with less than half of the min­i­mum rec­om­men­da­tion being built into their school day. Addi­tion­al­ly, kids from low­er-income fam­i­lies are less like­ly to meet this require­ment out­side of school hours as they are less like­ly to par­tic­i­pate in orga­nized sports. 

If the chil­dren are not get­ting ade­quate exer­cise dur­ing the school day, and don’t have the lux­u­ry of extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, then a way to build more phys­i­cal activ­i­ty into the day of a child is to incor­po­rate it into an activ­i­ty they are already doing such as trav­el­ing to school each week­day. This has sev­er­al issues due to land use and school loca­tions pre­vent­ing some kids who don’t live close enough to bike to school or live in com­mu­ni­ties with a high risk of trav­el vio­lence. This is why the empha­sis has been on build­ing a pro­tect­ed bike lane net­work to improve children’s health. With­out safe bike lanes, then those lanes are only avail­able to cyclists that are will­ing to risk their safe­ty or are fit enough to over­come unsafe con­di­tions. Hav­ing safer lanes cre­ates a less stress­ful envi­ron­ment where more vul­ner­a­ble indi­vid­u­als can take advan­tage of cycling benefits.

Anoth­er per­spec­tive on increas­ing bike lanes is also about improv­ing DC’s air qual­i­ty, which often does not meet require­ments, and shift­ing modes of trans­porta­tion from cars. Air pol­lu­tion con­tributes to chron­ic ill­ness­es like asth­ma, and chil­dren are more sus­cep­ti­ble to its effects. As the project con­tin­ues, decreas­ing park­ing avail­abil­i­ty may occur and may impede the addi­tion of more bike lanes. This project helps demon­strate the need for safe­ty over con­ve­nience and is a reminder that as a com­mu­ni­ty we can serve vul­ner­a­ble populations.

CEE sub­jects: Con­struc­tion Engi­neer­ing and Man­age­ment, Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing, Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Sus­tain­able Infra­struc­ture, Trans­porta­tion Engineering

• This project high­lights how one com­mu­ni­ty change can serve future gen­er­a­tions, vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, and improve over­all stan­dard of liv­ing. From an engi­neer­ing aspect, what design con­sid­er­a­tions should be con­sid­ered to ensure these changes are dis­played through­out the area (not cen­tered in one community)?
• Do you think more could be done to improve child health equi­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty? If so, what changes to a com­mu­ni­ty could be made? 
• How might dif­fer­ent engi­neer­ing deci­sions affect children’s health?

• Peer reviewed articles:
  • DC Safe Routes to School Program
• Pop­u­lar media/news references
  • Tack­le child health inequities by mak­ing it safe for kids to bike