The Safe Routes Partnership is shocked and saddened by the news that, across the nation, traffic crash injuries and fatalities are up significantly this year. By disturbing comparison, in the first half of 2016, the number of people killed by traffic crashes in the US equals
Provide input on Safe Routes to School in March & April to have your say
Fixing Our Streets is a locally-funded street repair and traffic safety initiative that will bring much needed street improvement and safety projects to neighborhoods across Portland. It is expected to provide approximately $8 million for school neighborhood improvements along walking and biking routes to school — around $500,000 dedicated to each High School cluster (including the elementary and middle schools that feed into a particular high school).
Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Oregon Health Authority, Public Health Division (OHA-PHD) established a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in late 2013, where both agree to “communicate, coordinate and collaborate on activities that support their mutual goal to improve the link between public health and transportation policies and programs in Oregon.”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Regional Active Transportation Plan (ATP), that Metro has adopted by resolution today, July 17, 2014.
In 2015, the Pacific Northwest regional policy manager, Kari Schlosshauer, was invited to present information about Safe Routes to School to the (Oregon) Governor’s Transportation Vision Panel, a yearlong effort to develop a series of recommendations to the Governor to address transportation issues across all modes and regions of the state.
Two days after the City of Portland’s voters passed a 10¢ gas tax to fund street safety improvements including $8 million for needed crosswalks and sidewalks around Portland schools, the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, Metro, voted to also make a large, dedicated investment in Safe Routes to School for our region’s youth.
Vision Zero shares many goals with Safe Routes to School. Vision Zero originated from Sweden in 1997 with the assertion that all traffic deaths and severe injuries are preventable. Sweden’s Vision Zero work was based on an old philosophy with a new twist: “it should no longer be the child that should adapt to traffic conditions, but the traffic conditions that should be adapted – as far as possible – to children.”
