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<br />As was the case in the Heavy TE neighborhood, cognitive mapping exercises like <br />this (Figure 7) provide a way for children to express their views of the world. Such <br />exercises are invaluable for identifying and assessing the problems and opportunities <br />experienced by children along the routes to school (e.g., important destinations, secret <br />paths, preferred travel routes, and existing barriers). In turn, they can prove invaluable <br />to helping community members, public staff and policymakers identify and articulate <br />the most cost-effective solutions to making neighborhoods and school area streets more <br />livable for the children. <br /> <br />N <br />A <br /> <br /> <br />H" <br /> <br />~. ":; I!:A <br />. . <br />l,~ <br /> <br />~~;' <br />. <br /> <br />1 HHHH <br />HHHHI <br /> <br />Light Traffic ExposureNeighborhood\ <br /> <br />Hit' <br /> <br />Figure 7: Cognitive mapping exercises like this help identify and assess problems and opportuni- <br />ties that children experience along the routes to school. <br /> <br />This graphic comparison of the children's collective cognitive experience makes it easy <br />to see the inverse correlation between their exposure to traffic and the quality of their <br />neighborhood experience. <br />In the Heavy TE neighborhood, the children frequently expressed feelings of dislike <br />and danger and were unable to represent any detail of the surrounding environment. <br />Newell Avenue, the main road in front of the school, is a tree-lined street and yet few <br />of the trees were drawn; instead, red (danger, cars) and orange (dislike) dominated. <br />Participants from the Light TE neighborhood, on the other hand, showed a much richer <br />sense of their environment, drawing more of the streets, houses, trees, and other objects, <br />and including fewer signs of danger, or dislike and fewer cars. The children also drew <br />many more places in the street where they liked to play and areas that they just simply <br />liked: they noted playing in 43 percent more locations in their streets relative to the <br />children in the heavy-traffic-exposure neighborhood. <br />In sum, as exposure to auto traffic volumes and speed decreases, a child's sense of <br />threat goes down, and his/her ability to establish a richer connection and appreciation <br />for the community rises. A child from the light-traffic-exposure neighborhood offered <br />the testimonial on the following page (Figure 8). <br /> <br />10 NCBW Forum Article 3-7-05- March 2005 <br />