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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.

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!

"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.

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.

As the new Congress convenes, pressure is on legislators to keep transportation dollars flowing.  The current transportation law, MAP-21, expires in just four months in May 2015.

Can rural roads be good places to walk and bicycle?  Why yes, they certainly can!  My daughters got their first bicycles when they were five or six.  They loved the bikes – but they couldn’t ride them.  Because the streets in our small city were a little too busy for crazily uncoordinated families with bicycles and small children, we would drag ourselves, the girls, and the bikes over to the park every couple weeks.  We would run around awkwardly holding the bicycle seats and trying to prevent the girls from crashing to the ground.  While this did succeed in providing the whole family with

Dedication. Passion. Commitment. These are all words that describe our Safe Routes to School champions across the nation, as evidenced not only by the great turnout for Bike to School Day but also by the increases we continue to see in bicycling and walking to school.

While the clock ticks quickly towards the July 31 expiration of transportation policy and funding, the Senate has been moving quickly (well, quickly for a legislative body that prides itself on a deliberative approach) to reach resolution.

Since the first U.S. event in 1997, Walk to School Day has become the cornerstone annual event for champions of Safe Routes to School, walking and bicycling. Each year, Walk to School Day celebrations break records for participation, with more than 4,780 events being held in 2014. And in many communities, Walk to School Day events are just one part of a school’s efforts to embrace active lifestyles.