Update from the Virginia Safe Routes to School Program
In March of 2012, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) announced the selection of 28 schools in 18 localities throughout the Commonwealth to receive infrastructure funding totaling $5.9 million. The projects selected for funding include a variety of treatments to improve walking and bicycling conditions. These include the traditional sidewalk projects as well as a few trails, crosswalks, signage and a school dropoff/pickup area redesigned to more safely accommodate pedestrians.
Like a number of staff at the Safe Routes Partnership, I spent much of last week at the 
As we have often discussed, joint use (or shared use) agreements are one of the Safe Routes Partnership’s three primary policy priorities from our Robert Wood Johnson funding. What is really exciting is how we frequently hear more about how much is going on in our seven network states. Here is a sampling:
Peer pressure doesn’t all have to be bad. Studies show that it can be good, too! Kids can encourage each other into activities that will improve their health and social life and make them feel good about themselves.
I spend a lot of my working hours getting into the weeds of transportation project funding and implementation, and working with our state network to sort out the complexities of state policy and bureaucracy.