America Bikes - Policy - Safe Routes to School

Federal Transportation Law.

Policy

Provide Safe Routes to School

Background
In the 1960s, more than sixty percent of children walked or rode their bikes to school. Today, that figure is closer to ten percent. The impacts of this dramatic change are quite profound:

Almost half of young people are not vigorously active on a regular basis; one in eight is overweight or obese.
More than 10 percent of all trips are “escort” trips, children being ferried around by adults; this rises to almost one-third of trips in the morning rush hours.
Children today have much less independence, freedom to move around, and opportunities to “discover” their world than any previous generation.
Motor vehicles are the leading cause of death for children 4-14 years old (2,197 fatalities and 267,000 injuries in 2001).
Children in the US spend an average of more than one hour in a car every day and between three and four hours a day watching television.

Enabling and encouraging children to walk and bicycle to school clearly has many benefits Ð improving their safety, providing them with fresh air and exercise, reducing traffic around schools, reducing fuel consumption and pollution, increasing community involvement, and encouraging healthy, active lifestyles from an early age.

Not surprisingly, a growing number of communities are embracing programs to achieve these benefits. Safe Routes to School programs include infrastructure improvements, educational initiatives, and encouragement activities to make bicycling and walking to school a safer and more appealing alternative. They help overcome traffic threats and “stranger danger” by involving parents, school administrators and the children themselves. Safe Routes to School programs have also proven a great starting place for wider community health, transportation and safety improvements.

In 2000, California created a statewide Safe Routes to School program using Safety Set-aside funds. In the first two years, requests for funding totaled more than five times the available money.
In 2002, Texas DOT received funding requests totaling $45 million for their newly-established $3 million Safe Routes to School fund.
Two federal Safe Routes to School pilot programs, in Marin County CA and Arlington MA, increased the number of children bicycling and walking to school and spurred local investment in improvements.
The nation’s first Safe Routes to School initiative started with 38 schools in the Bronx area of New York City Ð it has since been expanded to all 1,359 schools in the city.
Denmark has cut pedestrian and bicycle casualties among school children by more than 80% since focusing on Safe Routes to School in 1976.

Policy Recommendations
America Bikes calls on Congress to significantly expand and enhance the development of Safe Routes to School initiatives by establishing a national Safe Routes to School program in the reauthorization of federal transportation law. Congress should:

1. Establish a national Safe Routes to School program that would provide $250 million annually for Safe Routes to School projects.

Funding for this program would be available for infrastructure projects, education and promotion activities, planning activities and some special enforcement programs. Funds would be eligible to be used on any public road, pathway or trail, and not limited to projects on federal-aid highways.
Funding for this program would NOT be diverted from existing funding programs for bicycle and pedestrian improvements (e.g. the Transportation Enhancements program).
Funds would be administered through State DOTs (similar to the existing funding programs). States should establish a Safe Routes to School Coordinator position to manage the program.
Each year, $500,000 of these funds would be used to run a Safe Routes to School Clearinghouse and $100,000 to administer the National Safe Routes to School Task Force.

2. Establish a National Safe Routes to School Task Force comprising leaders in health, transportation, and education (including relevant federal agencies) to create a National Safe Routes to School Strategy within 18 months. The task force will provide national direction and leadership to this emerging program.

3. Create a Safe Routes to School Clearinghouse to provide information and technical assistance and to collect and disseminate information on successful Safe Routes to School programs.

4. Clarify the eligibility of Safe Routes to School projects in all existing funding programs.

March 2003