2. Cheshunt, A10 crossing to Lee Valley

With Cheshunt being near the point where the M25 crosses the Lee Valley you would expect traffic to have a major impact on the local communities. The area also includes attractive green corridors and connecting the communities to these is a real challenge. Often solutions can be very difficult, especially when faced with a road like the A10, but in this case the enthusiasm of the local authority and potential availability of vital land make this an attractive proposal, especially with the proximity of the Lee Valley Park and the Olympic sites.

A footbridge is being constructed to cross the A10. When completed, the footbridge will give those residents of Cheshunt who live west of the city centre safer access to local services, recreation areas and green space.

The footbridge will also link directly to St Mary's High School at its new site. Students and staff at St Mary's High School will benefit greatly from the footbridge as it provides a safe, traffic-free route for walking and cycling to school. For this reason, evaluation of the Cheshunt Scheme has a specific focus on adolescent travel behaviour.

Led by the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, baseline data collection commenced in March 2010. Students at St Mary's were asked to wear GPS receivers and accelerometers for four days to provide an objective measure of their travel and physical activity behaviour. Students were also asked to complete a survey about their travel and physical activity behaviour and about their attitudes towards these behaviours.

Parents are a strong influence on young people's behaviour. To capture this, and to substantiate the information contained in the student survey, all parents were mailed a survey and asked to complete it. The parent survey included questions on their physical activity and travel behaviour, their perceptions of the neighbourhood environment and route to school and their attitudes towards their child's travel behaviour.

To examine the impact of the footbridge on travel behaviour follow-up data collection is planned for March 2011. As well as examining the impact of the footbridge, this longitudinal study will also build on the limited body of research examining the influences of adolescent travel behaviour.

Sustrans Connect2

Broxbourne Borough Council

The footbridge has an estimated cost of £1.7m and is on target to be completed in the spring of 2010, in time to coincide with the opening of the new St Marys High School. £500,000 of this cost is funded by the Big Lottery Fund via the Connect2 project.

Go to Sustrans maps for an interactive map of the Sustrans projects, including Cheshunt (search for "Connect2 Waltham Cross")

Shannon Ferney, David Ogilvie, Lee Smith, Maria Reyes-Bonar (MRC Epidemiology Unit, Cambridge)

Fiona Bull (Loughborough University)

Ashley Cooper (Bristol University)

...using a number of and strapped to the students.

Peri urban, rural

Walking and cycling

Leisure and utility, in particular commuting behaviour among high school students attending St Mary’s High School

Go to Connect2 site: A10 crossing to reach Lee Valley, Cheshunt