Despite the well-established health benefits of regular physical activity, only one in five adults in the United States meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.^1–2 In response to these low levels, physical activity promotion efforts have expanded from individual-based approaches to promoting policies and environments that support active living. Federal, state, and local level policies can be effective mechanisms for changing and supporting environments that promote physical activity, particularly policies from sectors outside the traditional realm of public health.^3–4 Public health professionals are increasingly taking a “Health in All Policies” approach to addressing physical inactivity, which incorporates health considerations into policy decisions across sectors and policy areas.⁵ Despite this growing trend, limited research exists on effective policy processes and outcomes to increase physical activity.^6–8

Policy and planning decisions within the sector of transportation can impact the built environment and physical activity.⁹ According to Lyn and colleagues, a wide range of transportation policies can shape physical activity environments, including policies related to public transportation infrastructure, parking requirements, and traffic management.¹⁰ Recent research has demonstrated that different policy processes exist at the municipal or local level compared to policy processes at the state and national levels.¹¹ Thus, as recognition of the association between transportation policies, the built environment, and opportunities for physical activity increases, more evidence is needed to understand the factors influencing the development, adoption, and implementation of transportation policies at the local level.¹²

Municipal officials, which includes elected and appointed local officials, play a critical role in transportation policy and planning decisions. Understanding the knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of local officials responsible for transportation activities can inform the development and promotion of transportation policies supportive of physical activity.¹³ Few studies have explored local policymakers’ perceptions of built environment and physical activity issues.^12–16 One investigation conducted by Dill and colleagues (2011) explored the role physical activity played in adopting land use policies among local planning officials. Their findings suggested that physical activity was not an influential motivator for adopting local land use policies.¹⁴ Similarly, Maddock and colleagues (2009) assessed how elected and appointed officials at both the local- and state-level prioritized policies supportive of active-friendly communities in Hawaii. Results demonstrated that although traffic was considered an important priority, most decision makers did not consider other issues that affect physical activity, such as poorly planned development and sprawl, pedestrian safety, and lack of walkways and sidewalks, as critical.¹⁶ While these studies have provided important information on the low prioritization of built environment and physical activity issues among municipal officials, there is much to be learned on how this prioritization impacts actual involvement in related policies, particularly transportation policies.

Past studies have also examined the challenges local decision makers perceive when addressing built environment and physical activity issues. Common barriers municipal officials have experienced include limited resources and staff, lack of political will or support, and lack of collaboration.^12,17–18 Although these studies have helped illustrate the barriers municipal officials face when developing, adopting, or implementing built environment and physical activity policies, they did not examine barriers specific to local transportation policies. Nor did they assess how these perceived barriers may influence actual participation in these related policies.

Building on the work of Lemon and colleagues¹⁹, the aims of this study were (1) to describe municipal officials’ involvement in transportation policies that are supportive of walking and bicycling; and (2) to examine individual- and job-related predictors of involvement in transportation policies among municipal officials. The findings from this study could be used to identify specific leverage points for transportation policy advocacy at the municipal level and to inform opportunities for increasing involvement in transportation policy and planning decisions among municipal officials.

Individual characteristics of the sample are displayed in Table 1. Participants were mostly male (70.5%), White (78.6%), and had a college degree or higher (91.3%). Municipal legislator was the position with the greatest representation in the sample (29.6%), followed by transportation or public works professionals (14.3%). The highest percentage of participants identified as socially liberal (41.0%) and fiscally conservative (53.6%). The majority of municipal officials lived in the city or town in which they worked (78.3%), and did not walk or bike for transportation in the previous week (63.8%). Table 2 describes each of the perceived job-related characteristics under investigation.

Table 3 includes results from the multivariate logistic regression models for municipal transportation policy involvement. Among the individual-level factors examined in the full model (Model 3), transportation policy participation differed significantly by gender and residence of the municipal official. Male municipal officials were more likely than females to ever be engaged in a transportation policy (OR=1.74, 95% CI=1.04–2.92). Municipal officials that lived in the city or town in which they worked were significantly more likely to ever be involved in a transportation policy than those participants that did not live in the city or town in which they worked (OR=1.83, 95% CI=1.05–3.17).

Of the job-related factors evaluated in the final model, perceived importance of economic development (OR=1.32, 95% CI=1.02–1.70) and traffic congestion (OR=1.59, 95% CI=1.26–2.01) in day-to-day job responsibilities were positively associated with involvement in a municipal transportation policy. Higher perceived resident support of local government action to address economic development was associated with an increased likelihood of transportation policy participation (OR=1.70, 95% CI=1.24–2.32). Participants that perceived lack of collaboration as a barrier to addressing built environment issues were less likely to ever be involved in transportation policy supportive of walking or bicycling (OR=.78, 95% CI=.63–.97).

To our knowledge, this study was among the first to examine individual and job characteristics associated with participation in transportation policies supportive of walking and bicycling among municipal officials. Our findings show that municipal officials’ perceived importance of economic development in their day-to-day job responsibilities and perceived support from residents to address economic development were strong predictors of participation in municipal transportation policies. Over the past several years, a number of studies have demonstrated a positive association between increased investment in transportation infrastructure and economic development.^23–26 Thus, individuals and organizations working towards implementing municipal transportation policies that encourage walking and bicycling may need to reframe messages on how these policies can impact communities from a transportation or health lens to an economic one.

Perceived importance of traffic congestion in their day-to-day job responsibilities was also a strong predictor of involvement in a municipal transportation policy. Perceived importance of health topics, such as public health and physical activity, were not influential in municipal officials’ transportation policy participation. Our findings are consistent with previous research that has examined the prioritization of traffic issues among local policy decision makers.^14–15 For example, Dill and colleagues found that traffic congestion was an important motivation for adopting land use policies among local planning officials.¹⁴ Furthermore, state and local policymakers assessed in Hawaii considered increased traffic an extremely important policy priority.¹⁶ Local policy strategies supportive of active transportation infrastructure improvements, public transportation improvements, transportation pricing reforms, and transportation demand management can help reduce traffic congestion, as well as impact health outcomes.^9,27 Therefore, more appropriate leverage point for advocacy and collaboration at the local level may be addressing traffic congestion.

Although transportation policies and projects can contribute to many policy goals from reducing air pollution to increasing active transportation, economic development and reduced traffic congestion were identified as two key levers of influence among municipal officials. Both public health and transportation professionals should explore ways to translate evidence that demonstrates a positive relationship between transportation improvements and economic development and reduced traffic into effective and persuasive messages for these audiences. Public health professionals, especially, play a critical role in communicating transportation policies that support physical activity, and the impacts of these policies, to local policymakers. This includes developing and implementing strategies to expand the knowledge of local decision makers and advocates about transportation policies that encourage physical activity; establishing and maintaining relationships with local policymakers, the media, and other stakeholder groups that are engaged in related policies; and training stakeholder groups to educate policymakers about transportation policies.²⁸

Our findings also reinforced those of previous investigations that found that collaborations and partnerships are an important aspect of participation in a transportation policy by municipal officials. In the current study, individuals that perceived a lack of collaboration among departments as a challenge were significantly less likely to be involved in the development, adoption, or implementation of a transportation policy. Salvesen and colleagues underscore the importance of coordination among government agencies to support the successful implementation of local policies promoting physical activity, suggesting it can save funds and create more opportunities for physical activity.¹² Moreover, a recent assessment of state obesity and physical activity-related plans by Eyler et al. revealed that transportation professionals are infrequently involved with state plan development in comparison to public health representatives.²⁶ As such, there has been growing recognition of the importance of collaboration across public health and transportation sectors²⁹, including by the National Physical Activity Plan that identified a specific strategy to encourage cross-sector approaches: “Integrate land use, transportation, community design, and economic development planning with public health planning to increase active transportation and other physical activity”.³⁰ One opportunity for public health professionals to explore further is developing cross-sector partnerships with metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), or agencies that provide local input on urban transportation planning and allocate federal transportation funds in cities with a population greater than 50,000 residents. Although two studies have demonstrated considerable variation in how MPOs have prioritized active transportation into their transportation, planning, and land use decisions^31–32, examples of MPOs that have integrated public health with its transportation planning efforts are growing.³³ Additional research is needed on the extent to which transportation organizations, such as MPOs, are prioritizing transportation policies that support physical activity, and the facilitators and barriers to these types of organizations collaborating with public health professionals.

Among the individual factors examined, the residence of municipal officials emerged as significant. Individuals that lived in the city or town in which they worked were more likely to be involved in a municipal transportation policy. This suggests that these municipal officials may be more familiar with the transportation needs of their communities or more committed to policy issues that could impact them personally and as a result, may be more engaged in transportation policies. Furthermore, political affiliation was not predictive of local transportation policy participation. These data are encouraging in that municipal officials with opposing political views could potentially collaborate to advance local transportation policies.