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The Impact of School Location and Commuting Choice on Children’s Air Pollution Exposures
Citation:
Baldauf, R., M. Wolfe, N. McDonald, AND S. Arunachalam. The Impact of School Location and Commuting Choice on Children’s Air Pollution Exposures. Journal of Urban Affairs. Taylor & Francis Group, London, Uk, 672:410-426, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2020.1734013
Impact/Purpose:
Review children's exposure to air pollution if school site is moved from neighborhood away from road to a distant location requiring long school bus commutes
Description:
Problem, Research Strategy, Findings: The impact of school location on children’s air pollution exposure and their ability to walk and bike to school is a growing policy issue. As states consider laws to minimize exposure to air pollution, there is concern that such policies can lead to school locations disconnected from neighborhoods, accessible only by motorized modes. We analyze children’s air pollution exposure across an average school day, assessing variation across local school and home environments and school commute mode. We also assess how pollution exposure can be mitigated through various measures. For our hypothetical case study in Detroit, we found that busing children from a high-traffic neighborhood to a school 15 km away in a low-traffic, “cleaner” environment resulted in average daily exposures from 2 to 3 times higher than children walking to their local school. Takeaway for Practice: School siting and attendance policies favoring distant schools in cleaner environments can fail to achieve their aims of reducing children’s pollution exposure. Mitigation measures like a clean bus fleet greatly reduce exposures for children busing longer distances to a distant school while school HVAC improvements in a heavy-traffic setting yield more modest reductions
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: The Impact of School Location and Commuting Choice on Children’s Air Pollution Exposures