Safe Routes To School - Introduction

Introduction | History | Activities | Planning | Safe School Zones | Walking School Buses | Funding | Resources | City-SRTS Pilot Program
Garfield, NJ Case Study | Workshops | Community Assessment Tool

New Safe Routes To School items are available, including the video, Your Community's Safe Routes to School Campaign.

Safe Routes To School Introduction
Children’s lives have altered dramatically over the last few decades. One of the most startling changes is how little independence and mobility they now have compared to the generations who grew up before them. For example, not so long ago, walking and biking to school was commonplace; now it is a rarity.

The Federal Highway Administration has reported that roughly half of all 5- to 18-year-olds either walked or biked to school in 1969. By 2001, nearly 9 out of 10 children between the ages of 5 and 15 were driven to school by either a parent or a bus driver. Today, moms and dads chauffeur their kids to nearly all their activities, fearing for their children’s safety on streets due to perceived dangers from both crime and traffic.

Now a new movement -- Safe Routes to School -- is emerging. Commonly referred to as SRTS, these programs focus on getting kids back on their feet and back on their bikes. Neighborhood groups, traffic engineers, and local officials are working together to make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists along school routes, while encouraging both parents and their kids to take advantage of the many benefits of getting around on foot or by bike.

SRTS is an unusual approach to managing transportation:

• It has support from multiple constituencies, including transportation and smart growth agencies, public health and safety advocates, parents, teachers, and children;

• SRTS programs have gained strength from the local and grassroots level, resonating with the desire to recapture the cherished and independent expression of our childhood – the walk or bicycle trip to school;

• Where most other transportation strategies focus primarily on marketing and promotion (e.g., campaigns promoting carpooling and/or riding transit), SRTS has an equal or greater emphasis on the provision of improving facilities such as sidewalks, crosswalks, and trails for walking and biking.

While many parents have legitimate concerns about crime and violence, the greatest danger for most children walking or biking to school comes from traffic on neighborhood roads and streets. Parents often cite the fear of traffic as one of their top concerns in allowing their kids to walk or bike
to school. They note the importance of stronger education programs for both motorists and children, better enforcement of traffic laws, and projects and programs to help slow down the speed of residential traffic.

Indeed, it is exactly this type of comprehensive approach to traffic safety problems that has been shown to be most effective in creating safer streets and promoting increased walking and bicycling among Americans of all ages.

But Safe Routes to School isn't just about childrens' mobility and independence. The potential payoffs associated with fostering healthier lifestyles are huge.

• Obesity among children in the United States has reached epidemic proportions according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in large part due to lower levels of physical activity. The obesity rate for children has tripled over the past two decades, a trend which is at least partially attributable to built environments that don't support regular, routine walking and biking.

• In addition, asthma rates have increased 160% in the past 15 years due in part to increased exposure to exhaust from automobiles.

• Finally, SRTS programs can help battle child pedestrian injuries and fatalities which, according to the National Safe Kids Campaign, are the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 5 to 14 years old, in spite of the downward trend of walking trips.

Safe Routes to School programs call for a focus on outcomes more than activities. The goal is to improve the health and well-being of our children by ensuring that most children can and do walk or bike to school most of the time. This vision for our schools can only be realized by:

• locating schools in close proximity to the children who attend them
• providing good facilities for walking and biking to school
• reducing the threats to health and safety posed by motor vehicles, pollution, and crime

---

Resources

- Safe Routes To School = Pledging Safe Communities for our Children | PDF 140KB
- Community Schools = Healthy Children ALRC Fact Sheet | PDF 477KB
- A Safe Routes to School Campaign Action Plan ALRC Guide | PDF 1.9MB
- Your Safe Routes To School Campaign ALRC | Flash Presentation
- Renovate or Replace? The case for restoring and reusing older school buildings. From the Pennsylvania Historic Schools Task Force | PDF 2.6MB

Note: You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to read the items listed above. If you don't have Acrobat Reader already installed on your computer, you can get it here.