Participatory Geographic Information Systems and Active Transportation

Abstract

This paper discusses the approach, results, and keys to success in using new mobile geographic information system (GIS) technology in a public involvement context to assess the transportation infrastructure of most relevance to livable and healthy communities. Research on active transportation and the built environment is a fairly recent area of inquiry, accelerated over the past 10 years by an increased interest in the relationship between urban form and public health. As the research has progressed, so has the interest in developing ways to collect data at a fine scale–-the streetscape level–-and link these data to transportation behavior. This paper discusses the development and implementation of two mobile GIS-based tools that communities can use or adapt for quick, georeferenced, and useful local area analysis; one tool focuses on safe routes to school and the other on more complete local street networks. The public involvement component can help to create a political coalition that becomes active in translating data into political or technical action by appropriate public departments. Both tools were developed specifically to include a general, nontechnical public in the data-gathering and data analysis processes and have been tested in a variety of communities across the country. This paper summarizes both tools and some results from their use in different settings. It also discusses how the tools can be used in research investigating the relationship between the layperson's subjective perception of pedestrian and bicycle environments and objective design variables.

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