Measuring sidewalk distances using Google Earth

The new method contains three stages. Stage 1 involves calculating the distance of all road segments within the region of interest (e.g., neighborhood), extracting geospatial information on these road segments, and saving this information as a Google Earth file. This stage was performed in ArcGIS software. Stage 2 involves opening the extracted road segment geospatial data in Google Earth, visually examining road segments to see if they contain sidewalks, and deleting road segments without sidewalks. Stage 3 involves importing the modified road geospatial data into ArcGIS and calculating the length of road segments with sidewalks. The new method was tested in 315 sites across Canada. Each site consisted of a one km radius circular buffer surrounding a school.A detailed, step-by-step protocol is provided in the paper. The length of road segments with sidewalks in the testing sites ranged from 0.00 to 55.05 km (median 16.20 km). When expressed relative to the length of all road segments, the length of road segments with sidewalks ranged from 0% to 100% (median 53%). By comparison to urban testing sites, rural sites had shorter sidewalk lengths and a smaller proportion of the roads had sidewalk coverage.This study provides a new GIS protocol that researchers can use to measure the distance and coverage of sidewalks along roadways.Walking is the most common physical activity [1]. People who walk more in their leisure-time or as a form of active transportation have lower risks for developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and premature mortality [2-4]. Active transportation also reduces automobile use and greenhouse gas emissions, thereby improving air quality and decreasing acute and chronic respiratory illnesses within the population [5,6].In an effort to increase the physical activity and active transportation rates in the population, researchers have been studying the determinants of these behaviors. One such determinant is the walkability