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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.”

Safe Routes to School has grown leaps and bounds in the Phoenix area since the inception of the program. When MAP21 came along, Arizona DOT subcontracted the Safe Routes to School and Transportation Alternatives programs to MPOs and Councils of governments, which kept the ball rolling in the right direction. Phoenix has steamrolled ahead with a dedicated employee who works with 75 schools every year in the spring and fall with various pedestrian and biking events, including some law enforcement education. This work reaches tens of thousands of students each year.

There was a pile-up of legislative priorities in December, and Congress ended up getting a tax bill through but punted action on spending levels, the DACA immigration policy, and stabilizing the health insurance market to 2018.  This means that January is now full of deadlines.

Cherokee Nation Public Health works with 14 counties in tribal jurisdictions in northeastern Oklahoma. A community transformation grant from the CDC allowed their work to expand into Safe Routes to School roughly five years ago, laid out specifically as an objective in their community work plan. They work with local community coalitions to align their work plans, keeping Safe Routes to School part of the conversation at all levels where they are involved. They have also been able to introduce SRTS into rural areas that have infrastructure challenges due to access issues.

With the remaining days of the year quickly winding down, Congress has a very short window to address a legislative pileup.

Congress has not yet reached agreement on spending levels for government agencies, with the current extension ending on December 8.  There is likely to be an extension for another few weeks or even until early January.   Negotiations have been challenging, as they include spending levels as well as a resolution to the end of the DACA immigration policy for young people—so a government shutdown is not out of the picture.

When I was growing up, I thought we’d all be zooming around the skies, by now, in our automated bubble vehicles - like the Jetsons. Turns out, I wasn’t too far off.

Though not for flying around in the blue yonder, automated vehicles (AV) are in our very, very near future. Already, there are actual demonstration AVs on public roads - can you imagine a car or bus without a steering wheel? Vehicles like these are being tested now.

As the weather began to warm in spring 2017, something else was heating up too – the Safe Routes Partnership’s new Safe Routes to School Launch Program!  With five cities participating in the 2017 pilot year, the intensive program helped communities move to a new level of safety and support for students walking and biking to school.  The Safe Routes to School Launch Program is a joint project of the Safe Routes Partnership (Safe Routes Partnership) and UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC), designe