title: School-travel by public transit: Rethinking active transportation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Walking and cycling to school is a source of physical activity (PA). Little is known about public transit use for travel to school and whether it is a physically active alternative to car use for those who live too far to walk.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe school-trip characteristics, including PA, across travel modes and to assess the association between PA with walk distance.
  
  
  METHODS
  High school students (13.3 ± 0.7 years, 37% female) from Downtown Vancouver wore accelerometers (GT3X+) and global positioning systems (GPS) (QStarz BT-Q1000XT) for 7 days in October 2012. We included students with valid school-trip data (n= 100 trips made byn= 42 students). We manually identified school-trips and mode from GPS and calculated trip duration, distance, speed, and trip-based moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA; min). We assessed between-mode differences and associations using multilevel regression analyses (spring 2014).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Students accrued 9.1 min (±5.1) of trip-based MVPA, which was no different between walk and transit trips (p= 0.961). Walking portions of transit trips were similar to walking trips in terms of distance (p= 0.265) and duration (p= 0.493). Walk distance was associated with MVPA in a dose-response manner.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Public transit use can contribute meaningfully toward daily PA. Thus, school policies that promote active school-travel should consider including public transit.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Department of Orthopaedics & Centre for Hip Health and Mobility, 684C-2635 Laurel Street, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Voss
authors.affiliation: Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Blusson Hall, Rm 11522, 8888 University Dr, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
authors.forename: Meghan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Winters
authors.affiliation: Centre for Hip Health and Mobility, 7/F, 2635 Laurel Street, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Frazer
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Departments of Orthopaedics and Family Practice & Centre for Hip Health and Mobility, 7/F, 2635 Laurel Street, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9, Canada.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: McKay
keywords: Adolescent; Health promotion; Physical activity; Spatial behavior; Transportation