Does traveling to school before sunrise affect whether elementary school students walk or bike? Results from stated and revealed preference surveys in Minnesota

Some school districts schedule elementary schools with early start times for various reasons. Such start times sometimes necessitate travel before sunrise during winter months. Intuitively, this could potentially conflict with a desire for increased use of active transportation, e.g. from the Safe Routes To School program, to reduce motor vehicle travel and associated traffic congestion from driving students to school. Since prior literature has identified that parents are concerned about child safety around traffic, it is possible that travel before sunrise (where visibility is reduced) would also be a concern to parents and further discourage active transportation. We aim to answer the question of whether travel before sunrise affects whether elementary school students walk or bike. To answer this question, we conducted a stated preference survey of parents about their child’s travel choices, asking parents to rank the importance of various factors including travel before sunrise. Due to concerns about whether stated parental preferences would align with actual behavior, we also conducted a revealed preference survey using StreetLight data on travel to elementary schools. Survey distribution and data collection occurred in February in Minnesota, during a period of late sunrise. Overall, the results from all data analyses are aligned. Early school start times were associated with slightly higher use of active transportation in both stated and revealed travel patterns. Parents ranked travel before sunrise only as a moderate concern behind distance, infrastructure, crossing busy roads, and child’s age. We did not find data to conclude that travel before sunrise significantly limits use of active transportation.