Greenways as safe routes to school in a Latino community in East Los Angeles

The school setting and proximal neighborhoods have recently been the focus of policies and infrastructure investments aimed at creating more child-friendly cities that encourage youth physical activity. Examples of these efforts in the US are the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program and greenway projects. The extant literature has addressed active travel to school and greenways as discrete research topics, creating a gap in the literature that combines these efforts to determine if greenways can serve as an environmental support for youth active travel to school. This study fills this gap by examining the potential of greenways as SRTS infrastructure. The national SRTS survey was adapted to explore if and how high school and elementary school students in a traditionally underserved, predominately Latino community, use an urban greenway to travel to school. The survey results reveal that greenways may make it easier and safer for students to walk or bike to school as compared to using the often inadequate sidewalk and street infrastructure. In terms of policy implications, evidence from this study suggests that greenway interventions near schools may be a viable infrastructure improvement strategy to create more child-friendly cities.