Safe Routes To Schools and Transit

Safe Routes to Schools and Transit are aimed at providing safe ways for children to walk and bike to school and for all of us to be able to walk and bike safely to transit. They have started from both a safety interest as parents couldn't let their kids walk to school because the street crossings were too big, lacked crosswalks or lacked sidewalks. Interest has also grown as people focus on the health benefits of walking.

A national program, Safe Routes to Schools, provides information and sponsors the annual Walk a Child to School Day. The goal of the program is to decrease traffic and pollution and to increase the health of children and the community. The program promotes walking and biking to school through education and incentives that show how much fun walking and biking can be. The program also addresses the safety concerns of parents by encouraging greater enforcement of traffic laws, educating the public, and exploring ways to create safer streets.

Learn more about the program at http://www.saferoutestoschools.org

Some states have created funding programs to ensure that state and federal transportation safety money is spent on sidewalks and crosswalks so children can walk safely to school. Neither Maryland nor Virginia has a Safe Routes to School or Transit program. See here for more information.

The goals of the Safe Routes to Schools and transit can be reached through smart growth development because they both stress the importance of increasing pedestrian and bicycle paths, increasing safety for pedestrians, and decreasing vehicle travel, traffic, and pollution.

Funding for these Programs

Congress is currently reauthorizing the Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, or TEA-3, and pedestrian, bicycle, and smart growth advocates are pushing for transportation dollars to be allocated to fund such programs as Safe Routes to Schools and Safe Routes to Transit. Among their desires is that the reauthorization bill would include funding to improve pedestrian access to transit and schools, create more programs to encourage America's children to walk and bicycle to school, and require that transit properties address pedestrian accessibility in their capital improvement plans.

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