Please join the Safe Routes Partnership in asking our next President to make a significant investment in getting Americans more physically active. Half of adults and 75 percent of children in this country do not meet the minimum levels of physical activity recommended for good health. Yet, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently has very little funding to address our nation’s physical inactivity crisis.
People often ask me how I became the director of the Safe Routes Partnership and where the movement is headed now that the program is under attack by some members of Congress.
Recently, as I returned home after discussions in mid-February regarding national bicycle advocacy unification plans, I was blown away by the number of people – kids, parents, commuters, racers and residents – who were bicycling (and smiling while they traveled) in my hometown of Fairfax, Calif
We started growing seeds for our garden over the weekend and as I sat down to write my blog this week I was struck by how working to grow awareness and engagement for Safe Routes to School is similar to the growth of our seedlings.
On October 17, 2011, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) awarded $66 million to local and regional agencies for a total of 139 federally-funded Safe Routes to School projects.
The team of policy managers working on the Regional network project has been incredibly busy in 2012, and as I have reflected on their work in the past month, in particular, the importance of numbers has stood out. By “numbers,” I specifically mean data and statistics.