A Tale of Two Cities: Understanding Children's Cycling Behavior From the Socio-Ecological Perspective.

The childhood obesity epidemic has persisted for over three decades, which has presented serious social, economic and health consequences worldwide. For researchers and policy makers alike, cycling has been a promising focus over recent years for developing long-term physically active lifestyles in urban environments, in addition to contributing to the global quest to combat climate change. Promoting cycling thus presents a win-win situation not just for individuals' well-being, but for multiple involved sectors such as public health, transport ministry and environmental agencies. For children, cycling promotes exercise engagement, active transport opportunities, motor skill development and social interaction. However, across European cities, there are considerable discrepancies in the uptake of cycling amongst children. To understand and subsequently promote children's cycling behavior, it is crucial that the complex social, physical and policy environment, and their interrelationships, are considered. Therefore, in this perspective article, we adopt the socio-ecological model to gain insight into how children's cycling behavior is shaped at the interpersonal, organizational and community level embedded within city policies, relevant to increase future cycling participation in children. Our perspective is based on a review of cycling policies of two European cities, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Newcastle (UK), where stark contrasts in children's cycling participation can be observed. Our findings show that cycling policies in Amsterdam have mainly contributed to comprehensive organizational level changes, for example, cycling infrastructure development within the city, whereby these initiatives have made significant progress at the community level where cycling has become part of the "Dutch culture". Hence, cycling is a more common transportation mode among children in Amsterdam than in Newcastle. In Newcastle, policies primarily focus on organizational or community level changes, and progress has recently been accelerated in response to COVID-19. In addition to differences, we have also identified similar challenges in the two cities, such as the urgency to support uptake of cycling for children with low socio-economic background or challenges related to cultural differences. We also propose a "shared (cycle-)path" for policy makers and researchers as working together is crucial in producing multi-component interventions at a policy level that recognize individual, as well as interpersonal, community and organizational factors.

Landmarks in wayfinding: a review of the existing literature.

Landmarks are accepted as one of the vital elements in both virtual and real environments during wayfinding tasks. This paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the selection of landmarks in wayfinding mostly in large-scale urban environments and outdoors by discussing two main aspects of landmarks: visibility and salience. Environments and layouts used in previous studies, different tasks given to people and the main findings are explained and compared. Summary tables are created from these findings. The review concludes that there is mostly a consensus on the selection of landmarks, when considering their location. Accordingly, landmarks on route and also at decision points (with a turn) are more effective during wayfinding tasks. However, visibility of landmarks as well as visual and cognitive saliency need to be further investigated using different environments, tasks or different levels of familiarity with environments.

Children's Active School Travel: Examining the Combined Perceived and Objective Built-Environment Factors from Space Syntax.

Increasing active school travel (AST) among children may provide the required level of daily physical activity and reduce the prevalence of obesity. Despite efforts to promote this mode, recent evidence shows that AST rates continue to decrease in suburban and urban areas alike. The aim of this research study, therefore, is to facilitate our understanding of how objective and perceived factors near the home influence children's AST in an understudied city, Istanbul, Turkey. Using data from a cross-sectional sample of students aged 12-14 from 20 elementary schools (n = 1802) and consenting parents (n = 843), we applied a nominal logistic regression model to highlight important predictors of AST. The findings showed that street network connectivity (as measured by two novel space syntax measures, metric reach and directional reach) was the main deciding factor for active commuting to school, while parents' perceptions of condition of sidewalks and shade-casting street trees were moderately significant factors associated with AST. Overall, this study demonstrated the significance of spatial structure of street network around the homes in the potential for encouraging AST, and more importantly, the need to consider objective and perceived environmental attributes when strategizing means to increase this mode choice and reduce ill-health among children.

Comparative Associations of Street Network Design, Streetscape Attributes and Land-Use Characteristics on Pedestrian Flows in Peripheral Neighbourhoods.

Research has sufficiently documented the built environment correlates of walking. However, evidence is limited in investigating the comparative associations of micro- (streetscape features) and macro-level (street network design and land-use) environmental measures with pedestrian movement. This study explores the relative association of street-level design-local qualities of street environment-, street network configuration -spatial structure of the urban grid- and land-use patterns with the distribution of pedestrian flows in peripheral neighbourhoods. Street design attributes and ground-floor land-uses are obtained through field surveys while street network configuration is evaluated through space syntax measures. The statistical models indicate that the overall spatial configuration of street network proves to be a stronger correlate of walking than local street-level attributes while only average sidewalk width appears to be a significant correlate of walking among the streetscape measures. However, the most significant and consistent correlate of the distribution of flows is the number of recreational uses at the segment-level. This study contributes to the literature by offering insights into the comparative roles of urban design qualities of the street environment and street network layout on pedestrian movement. The findings also offer evidence-based strategies to inform specific urban design and urban master planning decisions (i.e., the provision of more generous sidewalks on streets with relatively higher directional accessibility) in creating lively, walkable environments.