Safe Routes To School - History

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A Brief History of Safe Routes to School

By the mid-1970s, Denmark was cited as having the worst child pedestrian accident rate in Europe. This prompted the city of Odense to pioneer a pilot program where all of their 45 schools identified specific road dangers to be addressed. They proceeded to create a network of traffic-free pedestrian and bicycle paths, established slow speed areas for certain roads, and complemented these with traffic calming measures.

In only 10 years, child pedestrian and cyclist casualties fell by more than 80%. Soon after, Denmark established what is now considered the longest standing national SRTS program, which has now been implemented in 65 localities nationwide.

In Great Britain, the Sustrans group initiated 10 SRTS pilot projects in 1995. Bike lanes, traffic calming and raised crossings cut traffic speed considerably. Two years into the initiative, bike use tripled. In the reduced speed zones that were created, child pedestrian casualties fell a dramatic 70 percent and cycling casualties by 28 percent.

Two Canadian programs were developed in the late 90s, borrowing from the success of the European examples. “Go for the Green in Toronto” and “Way to Go” in British Columbia both focus on creating safer routes near schools and initiating events and contests to encourage more children to walk and bike.

One of the earliest Safe Routes to School programs in the US was started in The Bronx, New York, in 1997, when Transportation Alternatives (TA), a nonprofit public interest organization, and The Bronx Borough President’s Office, created The Bronx Safe Routes to School program to work with parents, principals, teachers, community leaders and city agencies to create pedestrian improvements around 38 elementary schools.

More recently, test programs were initiated in Marin County, California, where several useful toolkits have been developed. In 2005, Congress appropriated funds under the transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU) for the express purpose of supporting and encouraging the development of SRTS programs nationwide.