Surface Transportation Policy Project* 
Transportation and Land Use Coalition * 
Latino Issues Forum

New Study: Declining Transportation Options for State’s
 Kids Taking Toll on Parents, Traffic, & Pocketbooks

Traffic Leading Cause of Accidental Death & Injury for California’s Children
State Ranks Last in U.S. in School Bus Service;

            California’s transportation system is failing the state’s children and youth, according to a report released today by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC) and the Latino Issues Forum (LIF). The report identifies how transportation options for California’s children and youth have declined rapidly, forcing children to choose between navigating dangerous streets on foot or by bike or depending on parents for a ride.

            New survey data from the California Department of Transportation — published for the first time in this report — show that California children now make about three-quarters (74.3%) of all their trips in automobiles, while walking and bicycling now account for just 16 percent of children’s trips.  Whether driving, walking or biking, today’s travel patterns are taking a toll on the health of California’s children. New statistics from the state’s Department of Health Services show that the number one cause of accidental death (1995-2000) for children under 18 is being inside a car during an automobile accident, and the third leading cause of accidental death is being hit by a car as a pedestrian.  Six of the top ten causes of accidental death for children and youth under 18 are traffic-related.

            “We’ve engineered our streets for speed rather than safety, designed our neighborhoods for traffic rather than children,” explained James Corless, California Director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and one of the report’s authors. “Communities that are built for kids are more convenient for everyone.”

            In 2001, children were involved in more than one-third (34.3%) of all pedestrian-vehicle collisions in California, though they accounted for just over 27% of the state’s total population. Particularly vulnerable are minority children and children from low-income households, who make a higher percentage of their trips on foot and are more likely than other children to be hurt in pedestrian-vehicle accidents. Between 1995 and 2000, African American children accounted for 14.5% of all deaths and hospitalized injuries suffered by child pedestrians in California, more than twice their percentage of the state’s overall child population. Latino children suffered more than 47 percent of all fatalities and hospitalized pedestrian injuries, though they comprised less than 42% of California’s child population. 

            “Latino children and youth walk more, bicycle more, and depend on public transit more,” explained Luis Arteaga of the Latino Issues Forum.  “We need to provide more transportation options and do more to protect the millions of kids in California who depend on walking and bicycling from the dangers of traffic.”

            Unfortunately, one of the more convenient modes of longer distance travel for children – by school bus – is used by very few California children. California ranks last amongst all 50 states in school bus ridership. Just over 16% of California’s public school students rode school buses in 2001, down from 23% in 1985. Over the same time period, school bus ridership nationwide increased from 51% to 54%. Low ridership is often blamed on limited school bus service in California as compared to other states. “School districts are faced with the choice of either taking teachers out of the classroom or taking buses off the road,” says Bob Austin of the California Department of Education’s Office of School Transportation.

            Child-shuttling places a heavy financial burden on California’s families. Two-parent families now spend more than twice as much on children’s transportation as they do on children’s health care, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Low income families are particularly hard hit. Families earning less than $39,600 per year spent a larger portion of their average household budget on children’s transportation than they spent on health care, child care and education combined. 

            Adding to the financial toll, motor vehicle accidents in 2001 involving child pedestrians and bicyclists in California resulted in $138 million in medical expenses.  When property damage, missed school, lost wages, and pain and suffering are factored in, these accidents cost California more than $1.2 billion, according to estimates developed for this report by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

            Fear of violent crime has also limited children’s independent mobility, as parents choose to chauffeur their children around rather than risk the possibility that they could be abducted by strangers. But this response has its own safety drawbacks: while a total of 364 children are known to have been abducted in California between 1995 and 2000, more than 17,000 California children were killed or badly injured while riding in automobiles.

            The report also documents the serious health implications of a lack of transportation choices for children and youth – including physical inactivity, obesity and asthma, which are all on the rise among California’s nine million kids. 

            “Youth have been systematically ignored by out transportation decisions, and obesity, injuries and a lack of independence are the outcomes,” says Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC).  “This is a wake up call that we need to start thinking about our children with every decision and investment that is made.”

            The construction of new mega-schools in undeveloped, outlying areas is part of the problem. The average distance between home and school now exceeds four miles nationwide. In comparison, more than half of all American schoolchildren lived within two miles of school as recently as the late 1960s.

            The report includes the following recommendations: (1) boost funding for Safe Routes to School programs throughout the state that help promote safer walking and bicycling options for children to get to school, (2) remove regulatory barriers at the state level that currently discourage the construction of smaller, neighborhood schools, (3) promote free and discounted public transit pass programs for children, (4) prioritizing school bus service and providing funding for school buses from transportation programs, and (5) involving youth in transportation decision-making.

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The Surface Transportation Policy Project is a coalition of more than 200 professional, environmental and community organizations working for a balanced transportation policy that protects neighborhoods, promotes social equity and makes communities more livable. For more information on STPP’s California work including a full copy of the report, visit  www.transact.org/ca/

TALC is a partnership of over 90 Bay Area groups working to promote transportation choices, affordable housing  and healthy, walkable communities. We work together to analyze policies and spending priorities, develop alternative proposals, and spearhead  grassroots campaigns  For more information on TALC please visit www.transcoalition.org

Latino Issues Forum (LIF) is a non-profit public policy and advocacy institute dedicated to advancing new and innovative public policy solutions for a better, more equitable and prosperous society. LIF addresses public policy issues from the perspective of how they will affect the social and economic future of the Latino community.  For more information visit www.lif.org