Resource Library

Several months ago we wrote about the impending mid-summer bankruptcy facing our nation’s Highway Trust Fund – the primary source of funding for America’s highway and transit programs.

As recent incidents in communities across the country highlight, community safety and gun violence affect whether or not families can safely access opportunities for physical activity. As schools all over America reopen their doors, parents and children in many neighborhoods are talking together about balancing physical activity and safety, and the need for communities that support both.

We are talking about this with our partners in a Twitter Town Hall next week #Back2SaferSchools.

For years, public health and community transportation planning worked together like kids at an sixth grade dance: boys on one side, girls on the other. They see each other, but there’s not much, if any, mingling.

This month saw the release of the highly anticipated film "Selma." Structured around three protest marches in 1965, the film follows Martin Luther King Jr. and many other civil rights leaders as they risked their lives in three attempts to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to Alabama state capital Montgomery in defiance of segregation and oppression.

At a time when bicycling and walking represents 12 percent of all trips, dozens of cities are added bikesharing and thousands of schools are implementing Safe Routes to School programs, some in Congress want to take away the small amount of funding Congress invests in bicycling and walking.

As we are all thinking of getting more physically active this May for National Physical Fitness month, it only makes sense that we look at policies and practices to increase access to opportunities to be more physically active. This brings us to shared use, of course!

This is the first in a series of blog posts highlighting pivotal moments in the history of the Safe Routes to School movement.

Dear Deb and Wendi: Thank you so much for creating the Safe Routes to School program sixteen years ago. It has really made a difference at Kent Middle School. I now walk to school every day I have a chance to. Sixty percent of our school now travels green, and it is truly because of the commitment you two have made. – Kent Middle School student, 2015

Written by Risa Wilkerson, Safe Routes Partnership Board Chair

It is with a heavy heart today that the Safe Routes Partnership (Safe Routes Partnership) mourns the passing of its founder, Deb Hubsmith. Her family announced the news yesterday afternoon.

“Walking is one of the most powerful tools we have to increase physical activity and emotional well-being for kids.” These are the words of U.S. Surgeon General Dr.

"Deb was so firmly committed to creating a better future for our children, and she will be missed."  -- United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, in a tribute to Deb Hubsmith at the 2015 Walking Summit in Washington DC.