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GENERAL INFORMATION
Communities across the country are embracing Safe Routes to School programs with significant successes:
In 2000, California created a statewide Safe Routes to School program using Safety Setaside funds. 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.
A Federal Safe Routes to School pilot program in Marin County, CA, spurred a 57% increase in the number of children walking and bicycling to school and a 29% drop in car trips – all in the first year of operation.
The nation’s first Safe Routes to School initiative started with 38 schools in the Bronx area of New York City – 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.
A recent study found that children whose route to school passed a completed Safe Routes to School safety project in California were three times more likely to increase their walking to school than children whose route did not include the improvement.
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| Information from America Bikes |
| Information from the Bikes Belong Coalition |
National Center for Biking and Walking Publishes “Livable Streets for Schoolchildren”
The National Center for Biking and Walking (NCBW) Forum recently published the article entitled, "Livable Streets
for Schoolchildren," by Bruce S. Appleyard, MCP, AICP. The article describes the world as seen through the eyes of
children and powerfully illustrates how streets and communities are impacted by automobile traffic and inadequate
pedestrian and bicycle facilities. In addition to the negative physical effects our overdependence on automobiles
has on children, the article illustrates the negative social impacts of a society where “cars rule our streets.”
The author shows how completing our streets for walkers and cyclists and creating “safe routes to school” programs
can help improve livability and our children's quality of life. The 15-page article is available for viewing or
downloading at: http://www.bikewalk.org/ncbw_forum/livable1_8.pdf
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