Six months into fiscal year 2018, Congress has finally set spending levels for federal agencies and programs. The $1.3 trillion omnibus appropriations bill includes great news for many programs for which the Trump administration proposed elimination or significant cuts.
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Volunteers are often crucial to the success and sustainability of a Safe Routes to School program. These people give their time and skills to support students and schools.
As more and more people are bicycling in the United States, a bike train can be a strong part of a larger Safe Routes to School program, initiatives that thousands of communities across the nation are establishing.
This handout covers frequently asked questions for starting a bike train program. This resource is great for school staff and principals!
This post was authored by Tiffany Lam
Safety and comfort in public spaces should be the norm. Unfortunately, street harassment exists, with inevitable effects on Safe Routes to School. What does this look like and which communities are affected most by street harassment?
This post was written by research adviser Tiffany Lam.
Safe Routes to School in Columbus, Ohio started in the mid-2000s as a cooperative effort that spoke to public health, the Department of Public Services, and the Safe Walks program, involving Safe Routes to School travel plans for a school or a group of a few schools. These efforts brought about mobility studies for a few different neighborhoods. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) funded SRTS projects at individual schools, but they were also receiving a lot of applications for larger school districts.
Newton, MA's Safe Routes to School program has made many gains since they started roughly ten years ago. Examples are across the board! Not only have they identified more local champions who work with individual schools, but they are also poised to announce a new working school transportation policy developed by an after school committee. The current policy has more of a focus on who qualifies for the bus, and they’ve been asked to develop a policy that promotes walking, biking and taking the bus.
Planning a WSB might seem complicated, but resources are available to get you started on the right foot. This handout includes FAQs for starting your WSB, this resource is intended for school adminstrators, principals, teachers, and parents.
Safe Routes to School programs across the country know that volunteers are the heart and soul of the movement providing support for walking and biking to school at all levels every day of the school year through all types of challenges and weather.
A week ago, Congress reached agreement on overall spending caps, which would allow for significant increases in defense and domestic spending in FY2018 and FY2019. Their agreement includes an additional $10 billion per year for two years to put towards different kinds of infrastructure investments (broader than just transportation). Congress now has about six weeks to divide those overall increases into the funding allocations for federal programs and agencies.
Walk audits can be informal and casual, or can include city councilmembers, traffic engineers, and detailed forms. In this toolkit, we give you the tools to hold your own walk audit that will help you achieve the goals of your community.
Walk audits are a great tool to gather information about street conditions, engage community members, and inform planning and traffic safety projects. Through walk audits, you can help improve walking, health, and quality of life in your community!
Walking one mile to and from school each day is two-thirds of the recommended daily physical activity for children and youth. This guide will help you create maps of recommended routes for students to walk with their families or in groups.
Moscow, Idaho is a community of 25,000, located eight miles from Washington State with a bike path that connects the University of Idaho in Moscow to the University of Washington. Initially, active transportation efforts were focused more on enjoyment of the outdoors and connection with schools, with little attention paid to the safety component. This started to change roughly 10 years ago when the University of Idaho partnered with the City of Moscow on the area’s Safe Routes to School initiatives – the city took on engineering with the University covering the rest of the E’s.
On January 30, President Trump delivered his state of the union. A few sentences in his speech referenced the long-delayed infrastructure package, as he called on Congress to pass a bill that would pair any Federal dollars with state, local, and private investments to “build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways.”
