Guide: An Overview of the Tool
What is it?
Safe Routes to School (SR2S) encourages students
to walk or bike to school, mobilizes the
community to create safe streets for walking and
biking and educates children and the community
on safety skills and healthier lifestyles. This
exciting initiative is spreading throughout the
United States and abroad. SR2S combines
education, community action and collaborative
efforts to accomplish these goals. Since this
concept is community driven, SR2S is flexible
and can easily be adapted to your community.
In modern times,
youths stay indoors for long periods of time and
are becoming isolated from their environment and
unfit. Many factors play a role in these
problems; however, the prevalence of driving in
our society instead of walking or bicycling is
seen as a major contributor along with public
vision as well as other modern lifestyle
choices.
When a community
mobilizes to educate families and encourage a
healthier lifestyle, children reap the benefits.
While it might be
overly optimistic to try to get children walking
and bicycling everywhere, getting them out of
the car and onto their own two feet for their
trip to school is achievable and can have
dramatically positive results, both for the
child and for the community. Children who walk
or bike to school enjoy daily physical activity,
appreciate their neighborhood and the outdoors
and arrive at school alert and ready to start
the day. Neighbors, on the other hand, enjoy
reduced traffic in the morning and a safer
bicycling and walking environment.
You have many
different options when creating a SR2S program.
Building on the experience of others, most
programs encompass one or more of the following
approaches:
|
> |
The
Encouragement Model – change
parent and child behavior through targeted
public awareness campaigns, may include
Walking School Bus and group bike rides.
This method is inexpensive and can be a
good starting point for the more expensive
methods. We will concentrate on how to
implement the encouragement method and
optional ways to incorporate the other
three models. Jump to
Educate! and
Encourage! to learn how to get started
with the encouragement method.
|
|
> |
The
Traffic Calming
Model
– use traffic engineering and street
redesign to change how motorists drive
around schools. This method can be costly,
but it significantly improves the safety
of pedestrians and bicyclists. Jump to
Engineering! for an overview of
traffic calming and other engineering
options, or jump to the
traffic calming tool in this tool
kit. |
|
> |
The
Enforcement Model – change
motorist behavior around schools by
increased traffic enforcement. This method
is inexpensive as it relies on existing
police resources; however, it may
discourage children from biking or walking
to school if the enforcement is too tough.
Jump to
Enforce!
for great ways to involve
traffic and law enforcement in SR2S. |
|
> |
The Funding
Model – win funding from
government institutions either from
existing safety and transportation funds
or by passing new legislation. This method
can reap great rewards for limited
resources and time, and let's face it --
any program you establish will probably
need money to keep it running! (Jump to
Show Me the Money for funding
contacts and information.) |
Why use it?
There has never been a better time to start a
SR2S program in your community. Do you remember
walking to school? Did your parents? Thirty
years ago more than two-thirds of all children
walked to school while today only 13 percent of
American children walk or bike to school
(according to
Center for Disease Control Kids-Walk-to-School). Children who arrive in
their parents’ cars miss valuable opportunities
to get to know their neighborhood, take
advantage of fresh air and feel a sense of
freedom and responsibility.
Recent research
indicates that 20 to 25 percent of morning
traffic is due to parents driving their children
to school. With traffic congestion on the rise
around schools, parents may feel it has become
unsafe for their kids to brave the traffic, and
the cyclical phenomenon of more parents driving
their children to school continues. As parents
generally make transportation decisions for
their children, SR2S targets parental concerns
about perceived and actual danger of bicycling
and walking as part of the program. SR2S
programs aim to dissolve myths through community
education and to reduce danger to school
children from increased traffic and speeding
drivers.
There are many benefits to walking or biking to
school. This list contains just a few:
|
> |
To encourage
physical fitness through a healthy and
active lifestyle |
|
> |
To share the joys
of walking and biking |
|
> |
To reduce traffic
congestion and speed near schools |
|
> |
To teach children
safe walking and bicycling behavior |
|
> |
To teach children
independence and self-confidence |
|
> |
To reduce air and
water pollution |
|
> |
To reclaim
neighborhood streets |
How does it work?
Implementing an SR2S program brings together
interested parties such as parents, teachers,
students, community organizations and law
enforcement and empowers children to make the
decision to walk or bike to school. Members of
these varied groups form coalitions to get
students to begin walking and biking to school.
Often leaders or champions of SR2S are parents
who incorporate walking and/or biking in their
daily life. Children learn from seeing role
models actively participate in the program.
Student involvement is another great part of an
SR2S program. They can be active leaders in an
SR2S program. Clubs can form around this
concept. Creating a student organization adds
yet another benefit to an SR2S program –
leadership.
Community members,
usually parents, connect with teachers and
administrators to enter the classroom for
programs and activities to get children excited
to start the program and motivated to complete
goals. For more details about how Safe Routes to
School works, jump to the
How to Put this Tool into Action in Your
Community section.
 
|
