Planning safe routes to school

Abstract

How do my kids get to school? That's one of the most fundamental transportation questions parents face. In 1969, according to the Federal Highway Administration, about half of all children ages five to 18 either walked or biked to school. By 2001, 85 percent of all children between five and 15 were chauffeured to school by either a parent or a bus driver. The Safe Routes to School initiative (SR2S) is an attempt to overcome the physical and psychological barriers between home and school and give children (and their parents) more freedom and a healthier lifestyle. Clearly, that's needed. According to the Centers for Disease Control, children in the U.S. are experiencing skyrocketing obesity rates, in part because of the lack of infrastructure supporting physical activity. In transportation planning terms, SR2S can be seen as a kind of transportation demand management strategy. Like other TDM strategies, this one uses marketing and promotion campaigns. But SR2S has an equally strong emphasis on the funding and construction of infrastructure that is necessary to actually allow walking and biking to occur. And in this case, the major support comes from the grassroots: parents, teachers, and children.