Children's Biking for Nonschool Purposes

In recent years, transportation planning has devoted new attention to the goal of increasing the nonmotorized trips of children and adults, both as a means of increasing physical activity and as a means of reducing motorized trips. For children, much discussion has focused on the journey to school, with little attention to nonschool trips. In this study, patterns of travel of both children and their parents to youth soccer games in Davis, California, are examined. The study aims to identify factors influencing mode choice among children and parents to soccer games for the Davis American Youth Soccer Organization. Data come from a survey of 1,084 parents accompanying their children to Saturday soccer games. Over three-quarters of players and their parents drove to the game on the day of the survey, with fewer than 20% biking. Multivariate models show that distance to games is a significant deterrent to bicycling or walking to them, while players who bike to school and whose parents regularly bicycle are significantly more likely to bicycle to games.