Resource Library

Key Takeaways:

• African Americans are more likely to use biking to travel to school. Of the total number of survey respondents, 13 percent of African Americans reported biking to school compared to nine percent of respondents from other racial groups.
• African American respondents are more likely to use bicycling than other people of color. 
• African-American households are more likely than white households to use walking and biking to reduce the financial burden of travel.

• African American survey respondents were more likely than white survey participants to identify bad lighting, heavy traffic, and lack of pedestrian facilities such as paths, parks, or sidewalks as barriers to biking and walking.

• African Americans take fewer bike trips per week than white Americans and are least likely to utilize bike-share programs.

Key Takeaways:

• The Safe Routes to School program that integrated a “citizen science” approach called Our Voice, increased rates of students walking and biking to/from school compared to the program that did not (24.5 percent vs. 2.6 percent.)
• The Our Voice program trained parents/caregivers to gather, analyze, and utilize data to inform Safe Routes to School activities experienced.  Participants of the Our Voice program were more likely to initiate actions to address barriers to walking and biking including meetings with stakeholders compared to the Safe Routes to School program that did not utilize the program.
• The Safe Routes to School program in the elementary school that used Our Voice also had more frequent encouragement activities such as walk/bike events, walking school buses, and walk & roll to school days.
• The Our Voice program that engaged and trained middle school students as citizen scientists experienced high initial engagement by students who sought to implement actions to address barriers to biking and walking.

Key Takeaways:

• The United States has one of the lowest rates of walking as a percentage of all trips (12 percent), compared to the United Kingdom which has the highest (26 percent).
• While countries like Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands have experienced declines in pedestrian fatality rates, the US is an outlier, as pedestrian fatality rates (pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 population) have risen 25 percent from 2010 to 2020.
• Compared to peer countries, the United States has the most variation among its major cities in rates of walking to work, with some cities walking rates being six times higher than others. For example, 13 percent of Washington D.C. residents walk to work whereas Houston residents only walk to work 2 percent of the time.
• People are more likely to choose walking as a mode of travel when they are in the innermost city center and when the distance is less than one mile.
• Walking rates remain roughly stable with increasing age in the US, although at the relatively low rate of 12% of trips percent. In peer countries, walking trips are higher in youth (<16) and older adults (60+), but decline in the middle age group.
• Western European countries such as the UK, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands have narrower roadways; overall lower speed limits; slower turn speeds as well as turn restrictions; and lower traffic volumes than the US.
• Traffic calming in residential streets is much more common in European cities than U.S. cities. Some cities in Denmark and Germany have designated some residential streets as home zones with speed limits of only 4.5 mph. In-home zones, drivers must yield to pedestrians, cyclists, and children playing in the street, thus fully sharing the street with them.
• Schools in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany offer traffic education as a part of their curriculum, and by fourth grade, children have taken practical training in safe walking and bicycling skills.
• One mile is a reasonable distance to travel. Schools should encourage kids within a mile radius of school to walk to school.

Key Takeaways:

• Policies supporting “Convenient Transport Infrastructure’ such as implementing bike lanes, convenient footpaths, walking trails, and pedestrian crossings paths, or increasing the proximity of public transport stops had the greatest positive association with more physical activity than any of the other two policy areas.
• Statewide programs promoting awareness about active mobility have the greatest impact on increased walking and biking and were most effective in increasing physical activity at the community-level.  
• Active travel training and events such as bike skills training and campaigns that raise awareness about the benefits of walking, biking, and public transportation are effective in increasing rates of physical activity.

Key Takeaways:

• Under-resourced communities experience several barriers to accessing funding for Safe Routes to School. Barriers included the ability to come up with the local match often required for federal funds; the lack of resources and personnel to apply for, write, and administer grants; and simply the lack of knowledge of what is available and how to apply for grants.
• Of the states surveyed (n=14), 63 percent provide special considerations to disadvantaged communities when they apply for funding for Safe Routes to School and apply additional points when scoring their grant applications. Some respondents also describe their state’s efforts to address barriers to funding by providing training, consultation, and proactive outreach to underserved communities.
• How states determine the effectiveness of their Safe Routes to School programs vary widely and differ from state to state. Examples of how states evaluate their programs include the number of schools involved in Safe Routes to School programs, the amount of funding that reaches priority populations, the number of people who access resources and training, the mode split of students walking and biking to school, percent of schools or districts with a dedicated Safe Routes to School coordinator, safety improvements, and pre/post program crash data.
• Only six states that responded have a strategic plan for their Safe Routes to School program. Of those plans, four include equity and a focus on underserved populations.
• Of the “Six E’s” -Engagement was ranked as the most prioritized by state program coordinators.  States described the importance of engagement to cultivate community and school buy-in, and the importance of local stakeholders (ex. parents, teachers, students, neighbors, etc.) to the success of a program.
• Of the “Six E’s,” Evaluation was the least prioritized. State coordinators described the barriers to collecting quality data and the lack of staff and resources.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Tune in on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT to learn about creative, flexible, and highly accessible federal funding that can be used to advance Safe Routes to School. Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) funding can be used for not only developing Safe Routes to School plans to supplement comprehensive safety action plans, but it can also be used for engagement, encouragement, and education programs! And - the application is a low lift and all eligible applicants in the past two years have been funded. We will highlight creative and exciting ways to use this fund, how to access the funding without cash match, and provide steps for applying for SS4A funds. You don't want to miss this!

Tuesday, April 30, 2024 – 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time

Please join the Safe Routes Partnership and California Transportation Commission for a webinar on April 30 about a new change in the ATP Guidelines: additional questions about the non-infrastructure program in Combined Infrastructure/Non-Infrastructure applications.

For a number of years, we have argued that the format and rubrics of Combined applications in the ATP did not allow either applicants to adequately highlight their proposed educational and encouragement programs, nor evaluators to adequately score them.

Thanks to the adoption of the online applications portable Submittable this cycle, applicants proposing Combined Infrastructure/Non-Infrastructure non-application questions will be prompted for additional information specific to their non-infrastructure components, and evaluators will be given guidance on how to evaluate them.
In this webinar, we will give an overview of the new questions, provide suggestions on how best to answer them, and answer any questions you might have.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024
2pm – 3pm ET

Join us for our final Walk, Ride, and Roll webinar of the school year! This session will explore strategies and best practices for engaging and including students with disabilities in Safe Routes programs. Our expert panelists will share how they lead and participate in inclusive programs, how they partner with local champions, and how other Safe Routes practitioners can make their programs more inclusive and accessible.

Key Takeaways:

• Safe Routes to School is one of only fourteen evidence-based interventions included in the CDC’s High-Impact in Five Years Initiative (HI-5). This initiative promotes strategies that show a positive health impact, results within five years, and are cost-effective. Safe Routes to School is the only intervention included related to active transportation.
• Safe Routes to School programs in the United States led to a reduction in traffic-related injuries around schools and neighborhoods.
• In New York City over a ten-year period, injuries decreased by 44 percent in census tracts with Safe Routes to School improvements like new crossing signs, speed bumps, speed boards, and high-visibility crosswalks.
• Texas (state-wide) pedestrian and bicyclist injury rates among school-age children decreased by 14 percent during the program study period (January 2008- June 2013).
• A study of 18 states found that Safe Routes to School programs reduced pedestrian and bicyclist injury rates in school-age children by 23 percent.
• In an evaluation of 47 California schools, pedestrian and bicycle collisions among children ages 5 to 18 in Safe Routes to School project areas were reduced by 53 percent.  Evidence shows economic benefits exceed the cost of active travel to school interventions.

Wednesday April 10th, 2024, 2–3pm Eastern

The days are longer, the weather is warmer, and National Bike Month is just around the corner! Join us for an informal Zoom session to connect with other Safe Routes practitioners and get ready for Spring programming. Share your program successes and challenges, swap resources, brainstorm project ideas, and let us know how the Partnership can support your work going forward.

NOTE: There will not be formal presentations during this session. The bulk of the time will be reserved for connecting with others during breakout groups. We will not be facilitating the discussion but we will provide guiding questions and are always available to help.

 

Wednesday, April 17th, 11:00 am to 12:00 pm Mountain

How do you change the culture of active transportation in schools? Join us as we explore community engagement strategies aimed at changing behaviors and attitudes around walking, biking, and rolling. Learn how Denver’s Advancing a Culture of Active Transportation in Schools (ACATS) program became a model for community engagement, and how they leveraged this success to secure Safe Routes to School funding.

Featured Speakers:

Kori Johnson, Program and Engagement Manager, Safe Routes Partnership

Priscilla Bloom, Safe Routes to School Program Manager, City and County of Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI)

Key takeaways:

• Children from families with lower incomes use active transportation to travel to school at higher rates than children from high-income families.
• Living farther away, at distances greater than ½ miles from school decreased the likelihood of walking and biking to school by 92 percent and from school by 89 percent.
• Attending a school with a high level of support for active transportation increases the chances of walking to school by 55 percent and from school by 48 percent.
• The likelihood of active transportation to travel to and from school was greater when children asked permission from their parents to walk or bike and parents perceived there was school support for active travel to school, such as a Safe Routes to School program in place.
• This study revealed that low-income individuals were more likely to use active transportation to travel to school. This travel behavior may reflect evidence of inequity, rather than choice, as families attending schools classified as low- or medium-income may have access to fewer resources, such as a dependable vehicle.

Key takeaways:

• From 2001 to 2017, weekly walking trips increased 35 percent and bicycle trips increased by 12 percent.
• Low-income, carless households make the highest number of trips per week using walking or biking compared to the other households (low-income with a car and high-income households).
• Low-income carless household are more likely to use walking and biking out of necessity and lack of other viable options.
• Individuals in low-income, carless households in suburban areas are associated with up to 14 percent more walking trips and 33 percent more biking trips compared to their counterparts in other areas. The greater use of active travel among people in low-income, carless households in low-density locations could be related to the lower availability of transit in many of these areas that would require people to walk or bike.
• In urban areas where walking or biking is more feasible to access a destination, individuals from high-income households utilize active transportation more than low-income car-owning households.

Key takeaways:

• Nearly one in four U.S. adults reported traffic as a barrier to walking where they live.
•  Of the survey respondents who reported traffic as a barrier to walking, vehicle speed was identified as the leading safety concern for people walking regardless of geographical area.
• Of survey respondents who reported traffic as a barrier to walking, the most common solution to increase safety was improving sidewalks and separating the sidewalk from the road.
• There is a mismatch between what people report as preferred safety improvements and what current guidance on speed reduction for improved safety recommends. For example, while vehicle lane reduction is a common method for safety improvements related to speed, only 10 percent of participants chose this as a preferred safety improvement method.
• Compared to those who walk for leisure or activity, people who walk as a mode of transportation were more likely to report the volume and type of vehicles as a concern and to select safety strategies that slow down vehicles.