Dan Allison
Geog 350: Data Acquisition in GIS, Fall 2018
A school walking and bicycling routes maps was produced in ArcGIS Pro using existing data sources from the school district (San Juan Unified School District), City of Citrus Heights, Sacramento County, and Caltrans, and newly created data from field waypoints and GPS mapping applications. The project developed a pilot map which will be used to gather feedback from students and other users, and create a standardize format for all schools in the district.
The rate at which students walk and bicycle to school is disappointingly low, which produces tremendous congestion around schools at arrival and dismissal times, which endangers the students who do walk and bike. Helping students and families to determine the safest and most pleasant walking and bicycling routes from home to school may increase the rate of walking and bicycling.This project will develop a Safe Routes to School walking map for one pilot school, while developing techniques and data sources that can be applied to additional schools. Though the maps will primarily serve to help students and their families identify routes to school, they will also be useful for other destinations common to students, including parks and stores/food.
A web search was made for examples of school walking and bicycling maps, and documents related to the creation and use of these maps. No single source provided a good map template, and no single source provided a methodology that was practical for this project with limited resources. However, all were useful in reflecting on the relationship of the built environment to walkability, which aspects of that built environment would be of most importance to students, and how to present the information on a map.
The features used are:
• School location: from San Juan USD shapefile
• School campus: from Sacramento County Assessor parcel map feed (https://services1.arcgis.com/5NARefyPVtAeuJPU/arcgis/rest/services/Parcels/FeatureServer/0/query?outFields=*&where=1%3D1)
• School attendance boundary: from San Juan USD shapefile
• School access points: manually compiled waypoints from field observation and Motion-X GPS
• Sidewalks and sidewalk gaps: City of Citrus Heights Pedestrian Master Plan shapefile and sidewalks data (which is the edge of the property parcels, not field surveyed)
• Bicycle Facilities: SACOG Bike Routes, from 2017 Regional Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Trails Master Plan, http://data.sacog.org/datasets/bike-routes
• Intersection control: signals and 4-way stops, manually compiled from Google Maps Streetview
• Crosswalks: legs and colors, manually compiled waypoints from Motion-X GPS
• Busy roads: arterial and collector roads from Caltrans Functional Classification System shapefile, modified to add speed limits which were gathered manually from Google Streetview
• Parks: SACOG Regional Parks & Open Space, http://data.sacog.org/datasets/regional-parks-and-open-space
• Trails: Open Street Map (OSM) footways layer, https://www.openstreetmap.org, downloaded shape file
• Libraries: Sacramento County, http://data-sacramentocounty.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/libraries
• Other destinations: Misc Public Gathering Places, Sacramento County, http://data-sacramentocounty.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/misc-public-gathering-places
• Walking distance: polygons generated from ArcGIS Online > Analysis > Use Proximity > Create Drive-Time Areas, walking time (20 and 30 minutes); polygons imported to desktop
• Basemap: Light Grey Canvas
Much of data that would be useful for walking maps is simply not available to the public, if at all. Nearly all Sacramento County GIS data is lacking metadata, so it is difficult to determine the source, age, or accuracy of the data. Where other datasources were available, these were used, however, the regional datasource (SACOG) often has to depend on the county for data, so even though the SACOG features have metadata, it was created by SACOG and not by the data originator.
The city of Citrus Heights made sidewalk data available, which is critical to the success of this project, since the presence or absence of sidewalks is the primary determinant of walkability. Sidewalks were not independently surveyed, rather the parcel edges were used to create sidewalk features, so the locations are not exactly but close enough for these purposes. Though low-speed, low-volume neighborhood streets do not require sidewalks, all other streets and roadways do. Sacramento County does not have any information on sidewalks, so this map format cannot be duplicated for the 50 schools that are in unincorporated county.
Speed data for major roads (arterials and collectors) was desired, however, the only available data did not have enough specificity to determine the starting and stopping points of speed limits. Therefore, speed limits had to be manually entered for these roads, by segment since speeds change along same-named roads, which was much more labor intensive than desired. I will continue to look for a good source of speed data.
Motor vehicle volume data was also desired. However, the county has very little of this data, and what is available is not well geolocated. Citrus Heights has more data, with geolocation, but it is not sufficiently dense to be of use on the maps.
It was difficult to determine symbology that would show all the desired features without overlap or visual congestion. A variety of colors and line widths were tried. The pilot map for Woodside K-8 School is the best balance of feature display that could be developed, but it will be subject to modification based on feedback from the school, students, and families.
The paper map has a scale of 1:12,000. This was a compromise between detail and readability, and coverage. When the maps can eventually be placed on the web, this limitations may be overcome since the user can scale the map and focus the map on the area of interest.
The map was a very worthwhile project and has been well received by school staff and walking advocates that have reviewed it. However, more specific feedback from students and families using the map will result in changes to format or content. This pilot map (and two others at pilot stage) took about 80 hours of time to produce and document.
Once a standardized format is determined, it should take about five hours per school to create these maps for each of the eleven schools in Citrus Heights. This is within acceptable work hour limits.
The collection of sidewalk data for fifty schools in the district in the unincorporated county would take about thirty hours per school, which is completely impractical. So the creation of maps for the county schools will have to await the county compiling sidewalk data.
It was intended to include other ‘healthy destinations’ as a feature, however, a working definition of healthy destinations for the Sacramento region is still being developed through a pilot program with Sacramento County Public Health and WALKSacramento. Farmers markets were included in the possible destinations, but the one farmers market in the city does not show up on any of the school maps.
Eckdale-Dudley, Ryan, Alex Sukupcak, and Kyle Engelking, Symbiont; and David Simpson, City of Wauwatosa, 2018. “A Smarter, Safer Way to Walk to School”. https://www.esri.com/esri-news/arcnews/spring18articles/a-smarter-safer-way-to-walk-to-school [retrieved 2018-12-07]; A project in which crosswalks in a small town were field located and surveyed, and then routes developed using the crosswalks scores along with students density and sidewalk data. It did not make clear if the routing was automated (Network Analyst) or manually created.
McNeill LH, Emmons K. GIS walking maps to promote physical activity in low-income public housing communities: a qualitative examination. Prev Chronic Dis 2012;9:110086. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd9.110086 [retrieved 2018-10-17]; This article was useful in that it demonstrated the usefulness of maps, but also cautioned that people without previous map experience could not interpret and use the maps.
Nykiforuk, Candace I.J., Laura M. Nieuwendyk, Shaesta Mitha and Ian Hosler. Examining Aspects of the Built Environment: An Evaluation of a Community Walking Map Project, Canadian Journal of Public Health / Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique Vol. 103, Supplement 3: Canadian Evidence on Built Environment and Health (November/December 2012), pp. S67-S72 https://www.jstor.org/stable/canajpublheal.103.2012.0s67 [retrieved 2018-10-17]; Another reference for identifying elements of the built environment.
Oreskovic, Nicolas & Blossom, Jeffrey & Robinson, Alyssa & L Chen, Minghua & K Uscanga, Doris & A Mendoza, Jason. (2014). “The influence of the built environment on outcomes from a ‘walking school bus study’: A cross-sectional analysis using geographical information systems”. Geospatial health. 9. 37-44. 10.4081/gh.2014.4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270292236_The_influence_of_the_built_environment_on_outcomes_from_a_walking_school_b us_study_A_cross-sectional_analysis_using_geographical_information_systems [accessed Oct 10 2018]; This reference was useful for identifying elements of the built environment to search for, and include when available.
Safe Routes to School National Partnership, “Guide to Creating a Walking Route Map”, 2016. https://www.saferoutespartnership.org/resources/fact-sheet/walking-route-map-guide [retrieved 2018-10-03]; Guidance on how to create walking maps using online tools, which was useful for thinking about the project, but this methodology was not used.
Safe Routes to School National Partnership, 2013. “Harnessing the Power of GIS for Safe Routes to School”. https://www.slideshare.net/SafeRoutes/harnessing-the-power-of-gis-for-safe-routes-to-school [retrieved 2018-10-17]
Walker, Cathy, MS GISP, “Using GIS to Create Safe Walk Routes to Schools for Washington’s Kids”, Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc16/papers/1758_47.pdf [retrieved 2018-11-07]; Explains the purpose and use of a state-provided semi-automated system for creating maps, heavily funded and beyond the scope of anything an individual district could do.