The walkability study released by the University of Utah a few weeks ago (see previous post for full details) sparked a lot of dialogue and additional news stories in the Salt Lake Valley regarding the positive aspects of walkable communities, and the specific benefits of neighborhoods that are designed to allow kids to walk to school more safely. An opinion piece from the  Salt Lake Tribune stated: “When walking is common, it becomes safer, since there is safety in the large number of children and adults strolling about. Planning can provide pedestrians with direct routes to various destinations by paths, trails and sidewalks that are buffered from street traffic and shaded.”

Here are some links to a few of those stories as additional food for thought.

• Original Salt Lake Tribune article about the walkability study: Click Here

• Follow up Tribune Opinion piece about walking to school: Click Here

• KSL TV story about bussing changes: Click Here

U of U study on walkability shows students’ and parents’ views of safety can differ, influence transport choices

August 11, 2010 – SALT LAKE CITY – Walking to school is as natural as gravity, right?

An individual’s decision to walk to school is actually quite complex.  It is influenced—perhaps—by distance and an attractive walkable environment, but also by intertwined social, psychological and environmental perceptions that sometimes differ between parent and child.

Because walking has important health consequences, researchers at the University of Utah set out to learn how the interplay of factors can help reclaim the walk to school and promote a healthy physical and environmental lifestyle.

“In the last 50 years, the prevalence of youth obesity nationwide has tripled,” says Melissa Napier, the study’s lead author.  “Coincidentally, the number of kids walking to school declined 68 percent from 1969 to 2001.  We wanted to explore the confluence of psychology and design that keeps kids from engaging in an easy, social and healthy form of physical activity.”

What they learned from the study, to be published this fall in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, is that walkable design results in a vastly higher number of walks by students living in  Daybreak which was designed to be walkable, than in a community with a peripherally-sited school, a street system of cul-de-sacs and larger lots.

In the planned community, 88 percent of students reported walking to school in a week, compared to 17 percent in a similar, less walkable neighborhood.

In addition, the study shows how other factors also influence the decision to walk or ride, which led researchers to conclude that understanding perceptions can be as important as designing walkable communities.

Researchers found that parents living in the less walkable community agreed that more barriers to walking existed than their own children did.  These barriers included perceptions of unsafe traffic, street crossing danger and crime.

“Parents’ perceptions are key because it is they who decide how to get their kids to school,” says Napier.  “Changing their perceptions—by mapping out walking routes, adding crosswalks and walking school buses for example—can go a long way in creating a supportive walking environment in any community.”

“Further, get children actively involved in making changes to their satisfaction.  Children who perceive fewer barriers to walking—regardless of what their parents think—were more likely to walk to school in my study.  Both children and parents have to agree that the environment supports walking in order to maximize the number of children who will walk to school,” Napier continues.

Researchers polled 193 fifth-graders in two schools in South Jordan, Utah.  The study was designed to compare Daybreak, a neighborhood designed along “new urbanist” principles, with a standard suburban school.  Daybreak’s design places the school in the heart of the community with well-connected streets, walking paths, sidewalks on both sides, small lots and multiple front porches, all of which have shown to support greater pedestrian activity.

“This is an early indicator of success of the design goals at Daybreak,” says Stephen James, manager of planning and community design for Daybreak’s developer, Kennecott Land. “Daybreak villages are scaled to the human pace and provide a diverse set of every day destinations such as parks, schools, churches, shops, offices and community centers interwoven with the homes. The routes must be safe and direct, conveniently connecting everything via paths, trails and sidewalks that are buffered from traffic and shaded from the hot summer sun.  At Daybreak the car is not central to experiencing life.  It is just one of the many ways to get around,” James concludes.

The students in the study were divided into three groups.  Students in the “walkable community” group lived within Daybreak and within a mile of school.  The “mixed community” group attended the same school, but lived in an area with larger lots and cul-de-sacs.  Three-quarters of the students still lived within a mile of school.  The third, “less walkable community” group attended a different school in a nearby area.  That school is on a busy street with a single sidewalk.  The area, a more typical suburb, has homes on larger lots, many circuitous cul-de-sacs, and fewer walkable features.  Over two-thirds of students lived farther than a mile from school.

The study was conducted by Melissa Napier for her master’s degree in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah with funding from a University of Utah Synergy seed grant for interdisciplinary urban systems research.

The study is available online at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.04.005.

Click Here to see video from KSL TV’s coverage of the story.

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So, in cooperation with Rio Tinto, the University of Utah, UDOT and others, we are exploring the possibility of a valley-wide bike share program for Salt Lake County. The program could be modeled after other programs currently being used in Denver, Montreal, Paris, Peking, Rio de Janeiro, and Washington D.C.

The idea is simple. Bikes could be rented and returned from convenient stations located at several locations throughout the Salt Lake Valley including Daybreak, the University of Utah, or downtown. Many of which would naturally be located close to transit stops. As a bike-sharing member, you can unlock any of the specially designed bikes at any station and ride it to any other bike station.

Imagine taking TRAX from Daybreak to downtown Salt Lake City or the University of Utah. You get off the train, but your office or classroom is six blocks away… You can simply grab a bike and ride it to work, lock it up, and then return it to the same station or a different one depending on where your ride takes you.

In other cities, bike share stations have been successful in places like water fronts (Oquirrh Lake) or other pedestrian friendly areas where people tend to gather (like say SoDa Row). As a member of the system you can set up an online account that provides tracking of distances traveled, calories burned, carbon offset and more.

Currently, there are more than 70 cities and universities world-wide that use a bike share system. The bike-share program removes three difficulties of daily cycling use: home storage, theft, and maintenance of your private bicycle. Seats and handlebars are adjustable to accommodate a variety of body types.

The potential Salt Lake County system is still being evaluated, so it is hard to say at this point how soon it will be before residents could participate in a bike-share program, what the costs might be, or where the bike stations would ultimately be located.

To learn more about the bike-share concept, you can ride a demo bike, view a bike check-out station and provide suggestions at a demonstration on Tuesday, August 10, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at SoDa Row in Daybreak. Representatives from B Cycle will be available to answer your questions and provide information on how the system is working in other places. B Cycle is one of several companies that operate bike share systems in other cities. Learn more at www.bcycle.com.

July 27, 2010—Officials from University of Utah Health Care and Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Land broke ground today on a 208,000 square foot facility that will provide residents of southern Salt Lake County with convenient access to the University’s primary, specialty and emergency health care services. The new building will include outpatient exam rooms, an outpatient surgery center, medical imaging services, a pharmacy, space for community education, a restaurant, and a fully staffed 24-hour-a-day emergency room. The center will also feature specialty services provided by the University’s Huntsman Cancer Hospital, Moran Eye Center, Orthopaedic Center, and Neuropsychiatric Institute.
“South Jordan and the surrounding communities have seen tremendous growth over the past few years and the need for high quality health care grows with every new home that is built,” said Lorris Betz, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president for health sciences at the University and CEO of University of Utah Health Care. “This new Center will be the University’s largest off-campus facility and the first phase of a larger University medical campus in South Jordan. The 300 physicians and staff who will work at this center will serve as a direct link for patients to the University’s 1,000 physicians and hundreds of specially trained health care providers representing every field and medical specialty.”
The Center, which will be located at 5200 West Daybreak Parkway (11400 South), will be the first major commercial project in Daybreak’s South Station Village and will be located adjacent to the South TRAX Station, the first of three planned TRAX Stations in Daybreak. Center staff and patients will have convenient access to the facility and can ride TRAX from Daybreak to the University’s main campus. The future Mountain View Corridor freeway is also located adjacent to the building site.
“The addition of a state-of-the-art medical facility to the Daybreak community is an important milestone,” said Scott Kaufmann, vice president, commercial development, Kennecott Land.
“Access to excellent health care is a key part of building a sustainable and healthy community.
Rio Tinto and Kennecott Land have a long and storied partnership with the University of Utah and we’re thrilled to be bringing their health care services to this part of the community.”
The new facility, designed by Dixon and Associates and being built by Layton Construction, is the seventh building in the Daybreak community that will be built to meet LEED specifications. The Center is scheduled to open in late fall of 2011. Opening this August, a temporary University of Utah Health Care facility located adjacent to the SoDa Row Village Center in Daybreak will offer primary and some specialty care. The physicians, providers, and staff from the temporary clinic will move to the new South Jordan Health Center when complete.
About University of Utah Health Care
University of Utah Health Care is the only academic health care system in the Intermountain West. As part of that system, University Hospitals and Clinics offer services in more than 120 specialties and is consistently ranked as one of the country’s best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. The system provides care for Utahns and residents of five surrounding states in a referral area encompassing more than 10 percent of the continental United States. The hospitals and clinics see more than 900,000 outpatient visits and over 23,000 inpatient admissions each year. Its academic partners at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Health are internationally regarded research and teaching institutions.
More information can be found at www.healthcare.utah.edu .
About Kennecott Land
Kennecott Land was established by parent company Rio Tinto in April 2001 to develop surplus mining land on Salt Lake Valley’s West Bench. Daybreak is the first testament to a vision for sustainable communities. Daybreak is situated on 4,126 acres in South Jordan City where 20,000 homes are planned. At Kennecott Land, sustainable development is at the heart of every business decision by balancing the complex interaction of environmental, economic and social factors.
Kennecott Land does this in a way that protects and strengthens what matters most to our community: strong and safe neighborhoods, quality education, a healthy and renewable environment, and a vibrant local economy. To learn more visit our websites and read the 2009 Sustainability Report. www.kennecottland.com and www.daybreakutah.com
About Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto, the parent company to Kennecott companies, is a world leader in discovering, mining and processing the earth’s mining resources in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible way. Where Rio Tinto operates, health and safety is the first priority. Group businesses also put sustainable development at the heart of their operations. They work as closely as possible with host countries and communities, respecting their laws and customs. For Rio Tinto, it is important that the environmental effects of its activities are kept to a minimum and that local communities benefit as much as possible from operations. The businesses produce borates, coal, copper, aluminum, gold, gypsum, lead, molybdenum, silver, talc and zinc. The company employs more than 65,000 people worldwide and 2,400 people in Utah. www.riotinto.com
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Besides the sleek lines, and improved energy efficient design, one of the biggest upgrades that comes with the new trains is the self service ramp that makes getting on and off the train much easier for everyone. The new trains will enter service officially on August 7, 2011. Until then, they will continue to undergo a rigourous commissioning process while the remainder of the TRAX line that will connect Daybreak to downtown and the University of Utah is completed.

New self service ramp

Daybreak residents Virgina and Bay Roberts were among the 200 or so people who enjoyed the inaugural ride on the Mid-Jordan line. Watch for the TRAX countdown clock on the Daybreak website, coming soon.

(South Jordan, Utah) Kennecott Land’s Daybreak community will unveil its new Brookside Home Gallery this Saturday. The Brookside Home Gallery represents the fifth major iteration of new home designs at Daybreak since its opening in 2004. The 19 new model homes demonstrate an evolution in design thinking with re-imagined spaces that reflect changes in the way people live today. Based on feedback from some of Daybreak’s current homeowners, as well as third party research, Kennecott Land and the seven home builders participating in the new gallery have built an entirely new collection of homes in less than 90 days.

Daybreak will introduce the new Brookside Home Gallery to the public this Saturday, June 26, 2010, with a grand opening event from 11 am to 2 pm. The event features live music on the beach at Oquirrh Lake, cooking demonstrations in the model homes, and a variety of food from local restaurants for sale in an open-air market. Admission is free.

The Brookside Home Gallery sits on an elevated bluff overlooking the Daybreak community’s 65-acre Oquirrh Lake, and provides views of the established areas of the community and the Wasatch Mountains. The 15-acre Brookside Park will be built adjacent to the site and feature a meandering brook that re-circulates water and carries it into Oquirrh Lake. The park will also include 25 additional community gardens, a large grassy playfield, and tree lined walking paths.

The new collection of homes range in size from 878 sq.ft. to 6,382 sq.ft.  and include three different types of townhomes as well as a variety of single family home collections. Pricing ranges from the $170’s to $500’s. Other new homes in Daybreak begin in the $130’s and go up to over $1 Million.

Kennecott Land, along with Destination Homes, Garbett Homes, Hamlet Homes, Holmes Homes, Ivory Homes, Rainey Homes, and Richmond American Homes set out to create a suite of new home plans that use a home’s square footage and its yard space more intelligently and efficiently which spawned the introduction of these new homes. “We’re finding, as we talk to people from different life stages, that their homes are not keeping pace with their changing needs,” remarked Cameron Jackson, Marketing Manager, Kennecott Land. “You’ll notice as you walk through these homes that the living areas have been designed to be flexible to better allow homeowners to adapt the space to their lifestyle..”

The major theme for most of the new homes is the incorporation of strategically placed outdoor rooms. These areas allow homeowners the opportunity to extend their living space into the outdoors by creating private open air spaces that can be used nine months out of the year. Covered porches, loggias, interior courtyards, and privacy screens are some of the features incorporated into the home designs.

“When you look at how suburbs have been developed over the past fifty years, people tend to purchase a home with a large yard and then spend the next decade living in the house and trying to make the outdoor space function for their lifestyle,” said Ty McCutcheon, Vice President, Community Development, Kennecott Land. “The homes in the Brookside Home Gallery are designed to function well from the very beginning, requiring very little additional improvements by the homeowner.”

In addition to the smart use of space, the new homes place an emphasis on increased energy efficiency. Since Daybreak’s beginning, every home has been Energy Star® certified. As several different standards for measuring a home’s “green” quotient have emerged in recent years, Kennecott Land has begun working with their homebuilders to improve each home’s Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Score. Established by the Residential Energy Services Network, a home built to the specifications of the HERS Reference Home scores a 100, while a net zero energy home scores a 0 on the index. The lower a home’s HERS Index, the more energy efficient it is.

Most homes built before 2006 score above 100. Newer, Energy Star® certified homes achieve higher efficiency ratings score at or below 80 on the HERS Index. All homes being built in Daybreak today have a HERS index of between 70-85, with some highly efficient homes scoring in the 60’s, meaning the homes in Daybreak are between 15-40% more energy efficient than older homes.

About Kennecott Land

KLC was established by Rio Tinto in April 2001 to develop surplus mining land. Daybreak is the first testament to that vision. Daybreak is situated on 4,126 acres in the city of South Jordan where 20,000 homes and up to 13 million square feet of commercial space are planned. At KLC, sustainable development is at the heart of every business decision by balancing the complex interaction of environmental, economic and social factors. Kennecott Land does this in a way that protects and strengthens what matters most to our community: strong and safe neighborhoods, quality education, a healthy and renewable environment, and a vibrant local economy. Additional information is available at www.kennecottland.com and www.daybreakutah.com

About Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the United Kingdom, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London and NYSE listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Rio Tinto’s business is finding, mining, and processing mineral resources. Major products are aluminum, copper, diamonds, energy (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc) and iron ore. Activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and Southern Africa. Additional information is available at www.riotinto.com