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Published on: April 30, 2020
Transit Use, Physical Activity, and Body Mass Index Changes: Objective Measures Associated With Complete Street
Barbara B Brown1, Carol M Werner, Calvin P Tribby
1Barbara B. Brown and Ken R. Smith are with the Department of Family and Consumer Studies and the Cancer Control and Population Sciences program, Huntsman Cancer Institute, and Carol M. Werner is with the Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Calvin P. Tribby is a PhD student and Harvey J. Miller is with Ohio State University, Columbus.
Objectives:
We assessed effects on physical activity (PA) and weight among participants in a complete street intervention that extended a light-rail line in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Methods:
Participants in the Moving Across Places Study resided within 2 kilometers of the new line. They wore accelerometers and global positioning system (GPS) loggers for 1 week before and after rail construction. Regression analyses compared change scores of participants who never rode transit with continuing, former, and new riders, after adjustment for control variables (total n = 537).
Results:
New riders had significantly more accelerometer-measured counts per minute than never-riders (P < .01), and former riders had significantly fewer (P < .01). New riders lost (P < .05) and former riders gained (P < .01) weight. Former riders lost 6.4 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) per 10 hours of accelerometer wear (P < .01) and gained 16.4 minutes of sedentary time (P < .01). New riders gained 4.2 MVPA minutes (P < .05) and lost 12.8 (P < .05) sedentary minutes per 10 hours accelerometer wear.
Conclusions:
In light of the health benefits of transit ridership in the complete street area, research should address how to encourage more sustained ridership.
