This South Providence Elementary School Had a Chronic Absenteeism Problem. Then They Started a Walking School Bus.
At first, the maps didn’t make sense. Why would the kids who lived closest to school – all within one mile – have the most problems with chronic absenteeism?
These briefings sheets were developed with funding support from the National Center for Safe Routes to School. The briefing sheets are intended for use by transportation engineers and planners to support their active participation in the development and implementation of Safe Routes to School programs and activities.
The deadline to prevent the Highway Trust Fund from becoming insolvent is rapidly approaching, leaving Congress and the Administration with just months to identify a solution. But will they be up to the task? The stakes for Congress couldn’t be higher, with a failure to act putting hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk and bringing thousands of construction projects, including
The Boyle Heights/East Los Angeles (BHELA) Community Health Assessment explores the nexus between the built environment, public policy, and urban planning in an effort to determine their impact on the health and wellbeing of residents in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.
The technologies drawing attention are user-centric that allow both users and providers to interact and share information about the transportation network. Active transportation and Safe Routes to Schools advocates should care about these trends because they are expanding transportation options, promoting active lifestyles and tipping the political scales towards multi-modalism in planning and implementation.The digital space is using the influx of information (i.e. big data) to find patterns and efficiencies in the transportation system. These mobile and web applications are facilitating supportive programs and policies for walking, bicycling and Safe Routes to School, even when active transportation is not the immediate focus of mobile and web applications. Safe Routes to School supporters will be able to better partner with transportation agencies, organizations and advocates, if they stay alert to the culture changes that technology is causing within transportation.
First, I posit that ride and car-sharing services will bolster walkable and bikeable communities. I see many ways that students and families will be supported and encouraged to be car-free or car-limited with more reliable alternative networks, such as ride and car-share, cross jurisdictional bicycle and pedestrian networks and public transportation. Ridesharing mobile applications like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar are booming and flipped the script on taxi and car services and local job creation. Users of ride share applications can name their price for trips with Lyft and benefit (or suffer) with surge pricing with Uber. Potentially communities benefits in the strengthening of ride and car-share through crowdsourcing affordability and flexibility. Paratransit riders - usually the elderly and persons with disability - are also frequent users of ride-shares. Additionally, car sharing companies like Zipcar allow drivers to rent a car by the hour, where prices include insurance and maintenance. Personally, I know families that would benefit from having better access to alternative networks to get children to school and after-school activities. One family in particular was forced to give up their car free lifestyle when the local Zipcar location was closed. These technologies are means to fill in the transportation gaps for communities and families.
Today, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee released their draft bill reauthorizing MAP-21, which would fund our nation’s surface transportation programs for an additional six years.
The Partnership for Prevention has collaborated with the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) at UC Berkeley, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the CDC to produce Transportation and Health: Policy Interventions for Safer, Healthier People and Communities.
In Los Angeles County, two years collaborative efforts to make sure the County’s transportation investments add up to create a truly multimodal system are at a critical juncture!
This resource describes benefits of walkability for economic vitality.
"It is just not safe to let my child walk or ride their bike to school." So said respondents from the initial survey that the PTA of Linwood Elementary in Milwaukie, Oregon, sent out last spring. They didn’t know that 'Safe Routes to School' – with capital letters – existed. But they knew something was not right, and they wanted to fix it.
This document supplies a variety of evidence-backed factual conclusions that support a community’s decision to enact a complete streets resolution or law. An adopting body should select those findings it views as most significant for its community and add findings related to local conditions or concerns.
Just in time for International Walk to School Day, a new study has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association that confirms what those of us in the field have long known: Safe Routes to School programs are effective at increasing rates of walking and bicycling to and from school.
Most people think of New Jersey as an urban place -- after all, it has the highest population density in the country. There are many dense urban cities and suburban communities, but there are also large rural areas with small towns and open spaces. Contrary to what you might initially think, there are lessons to be learned in New Jersey about Safe Routes to School in rural settings.
USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx has issued a challenge to mayors and elected officials: take action to support safety for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages.
To help policymakers avoid crossing constitutional boundaries, we distilled thelegal concepts most relevant to formulating policies aimed at preventing obesity; police power; allocation of power among federal, state, and local governments; freedom of speech; property rights; privacy; equal protection; andcontract rights.
At the end of May, the current transportation law MAP-21 will expire unless Congress acts. Leaders in the House and Senate are currently wrestling over their options, with Congress likely to extend the current law until at least July and possibly through the rest of the year.
The role of the National Center is to build the capacity of schools, districts, community partners and government agencies to organize their human and financial resources around student success.
There is no doubt that good walking and biking infrastructure is essential to successful Safe Routes to School programs. However, many communities already have “the bones” of adequate infrastructure, especially around established community-based schools in suburban and urban communities, or through completed Safe Routes to School-funded engineering projects.
This resource contains four Model Policies for California for establishing joint use agreements, with schools, cities, indoor and outdoor facilities.
It is with great pleasure that I share some exciting news with you. On August 3, 2015, the Safe Routes Partnership voted to expand its Board of Directors and voted in two new persons to serve as board members. Led by Board Chair Risa Wilkerson, the Board of Directors has been actively researching and working through targeted board development for the last year. These two new members bring a wealth of experience, the willingness to roll up their sleeves and get to work as well as a commitment to the sustainability of our organization. We truly could not be more pleased.