Resources

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published “Recommendations for Improving Health Through Transportation Policy” in recognition of the impact that transportation systems have on health and quality of life. This document outlines innovative policies and programs that protect and promote health while accomplishing transportation objectives. The recommendations include policies that improve air quality, reduce injuries, and/or promote physical activity through transportation.

The Changelab Solutions report, “Healthy Planning Policies - A Compendium from California General Plans,” offers insight into some of the strategies that cities have employed to incorporate health into land use and transpiration policies.

“How to Create and Implement Healthy General Plans: A Toolkit for Building Healthy, Vibrant Communities” describes the possibilities available for improving health through the general plan process. It includes model language and standards for creating and implementing plans like those in the Compendium above. 

Active Living by Design (http://activelivingbydesign.org/) offers a variety of resources, including webinars and case studies of promising practices in healthy planning. Their Resources page is particularly useful for highlighting resources available for anyone interested in lessons learned, growing a movement and advancing active transportation. 

The PLACE program developed “Let’s Walk to School Together! A Walking School Bus Training Manual” as a resource for adult volunteers interested in starting a Walking School Bus program at their school. A Walking School Bus is an adult-supervised group walk to and/or from school. The goal of the program is to encourage students to walk to school, and is one of many possible Safe Routes to School programs. The Training Manual outlines key phases of a Walking School Bus program’s development and provides customizable templates that can help kick-start the program. In addition, a flyer (English and Spanish )is available to help recruit volunteers for the program.

The PLACE program compiled safety tips for people walking, adult cyclists, and children cyclists. The Automobile Association of America (AAA) has compiled safe driving resources and additional resources for older adult drivers. Healthcare providers are encouraged to discuss safe roadway behaviors and distribute these tips to their patients to build awareness of traffic safety. Since pedestrians and bicyclists are disproportionately impacted in fatal and severe injury traffic collisions, alerting patients to the importance of safe walking, bicycling, and scooting is critical. To learn more about safely using e-scooters, please visit: http://dcba.lacounty.gov/eridesafety/.

This manual focuses on all users and all modes, seeking to achieve balanced street design that accommodates cars while ensuring that pedestrians, cyclists and transit users can travel safely and comfortably. Download the PDF version Model Design Manual for Living Streets or an editable MS Word version here.

Cities may use this manual in any way that helps them update their current practices, including adopting the entire manual, adopting certain chapters in full or part, modifying or customizing chapters to suit each city’s needs.

Download PDF version Model Design Manual for Living Streets  or editable MS Word version from the dedicated page for this manual here.

Every four years the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) updates the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). The RTP is a long-range (25-year) transportation plan for the Southern California and it has the potential to reduce air pollution, increase the walkability and bikeability of cities in the region, and expand the public transit system.

In 2012, to support SCAG’s efforts in making difficult resource allocation decisions, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health estimated the cost of creating pedestrian and bicycle improvements throughout the SCAG region. The accompanying document provides the calculations and assumptions used in our draft analysis. There are three components to the analysis: bicycle costs; pedestrian costs; and bicycle and pedestrian costs in Transit Oriented Districts (TODs). We estimate a range from $37 billion to $59 billion over the 25-year period

Organizations and Websites to Know
Here you’ll find links to outstanding organizations that have experience promoting, implementing, and evaluating policies that support healthier built environments in Los Angeles County and California. This link also includes websites that offer insight into the news and opinion of the urban planning and public health communities.

Data Sources
These links include official reports and data sets that offer insight into health outcomes and transportation patterns in Los Angeles County, the state of California, and the nation.

Funding Opportunities
Several organizations and governmental departments at the state and national levels offer funding for the development and/or implementation of active living policies and plans.

Navigating LA on Bike, Foot, & Transit (http://www.choosehealthla.com/move/biking/)
Learn more about how to get around Los Angeles County by bicycling, walking, and public transit.

SafeTREC: Transportation and Health – Policy Interventions for Safer, Healthier People and Communities
This report provides policy recommendations in the following areas: policies that improve the environment and environmental health; policies that enhance community design and promote active transportation; policies that reduce motor vehicle-related injuries and fatalities. The report is authored by the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC)  at UC Berkeley and was made possible by a cooperative agreement between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Partnership for Prevention.

CDC: Recommended Community Strategies and Measurements to Prevent Obesity in the United States
Recent reports have shown that approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults and one-fifth of U.S. children are obese or overweight. This trend is a growing epidemic and is dependent upon many built environment factors. For this reason, it is important to promote healthy communities and lifestyles. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified and recommended a set of strategies and associated measurements that communities and local governments can use to plan and monitor environmental and policy-level changes for obesity prevention. It provides a resource of these policies and recommendations to help address this problem on a community level.

Active Transportation for America: A Case for Increased Federal Investment in Bicycling and Walking
Active Transportation for America makes the case and quantifies the national benefits—for the first time—that increased federal funding in bicycling and walking infrastructure would provide tens of billions of dollars in benefits to all Americans. By making active transportation a viable option for everyday travel, we will cost-effectively reduce oil dependence, climate pollution and obesity rates while providing more and better choices for getting around.

Creating Healthy Environments: Case Studies of Local Health Departments
What strategies, relationships, and roles are local health departments using to promote healthy built environments? Three case studies highlight the successes, challenges, and important lessons from three public health departments in California. First, the profile of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health describes how the PLACE Program became established and how the County supported the City of El Monte to add a Health Element to its General Plan. The case study on Shasta County examines how a modest grant and community involvement allowed the rural county to secure a Safe Routes to School grant. Shasta County also used this process to develop a method for evaluating how new development could affect health. Third, Contra Costa County’s Department of Public Health teamed up with the local transportation agency to educate engineers, planners, and residents about the benefits of traffic calming for health. Each report addresses the successes, challenges, and capacity-building steps involved in each County’s work to improve the health of its residents through the built environment.

Bicycle Friendly Communities: Lessons from LA County Guide

Many cities, organizations, and advocates in L.A. County are promoting and supporting bicycling as an effective response to obesity, physical inactivity and our reliance on the automobile. A number of bicycle-friendly initiatives have been started, and progress can be seen in communities throughout the county. The Bicycle Friendly Communities: Lessons from LA County Guide ( was created to reinforce that progress and help more communities move toward bicycle-friendliness. It was written for anyone who wants to bring the benefits of bicycle-friendliness to his or her community – that is, for anyone who wants to use bicycling as a tool to make the built environment more people-focused, create conditions that support access to daily physical activity, and develop a more sustainable, livable, and healthy community.

How to Increase Bicycling for Daily Travel and Getting the Wheels Rolling

These two recent reports from Active Living Research and Changelab Solutions, respectively, offer insight into the tools that planning and public health departments have at their disposal to increase bicycling in their communities. “How to Increase Bicycling for Daily Travel” focuses on the most effective strategies for encouraging bicycling, such as integrated with public transit service. “Getting the Wheels Rolling” is intended to help policymakers understand the best ways to use laws and policies for making change on the ground.

Housing

Housing and Health: New Opportunities for Dialogue and Action
This report, from ChangeLab Solutions, Center for Housing Policy, National Center for Healthy Housing, and Trust for America’s Health describes the relationship between housing policy and health. Housing conditions can affect physiological health in a straightforward ways through exposing residents to dangerous chemicals, like lead. Other attributes of housing that affect health include physical neighborhood characteristics, which affect walkability and access to healthy food, and neighborhood social characteristics, like poverty and crime. Beyond describing these issues, this concept paper makes recommendations for addressing these issues through policy.