Safe Routes to School E-News
Issue #35: November 2008
Safe Routes to School E-News is a monthly email newsletter published by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, a growing national network of more than 350 non-profit organizations, government agencies, and professional groups that are working to set goals, share best practices, secure funding, and provide detailed policy input to implementing agencies for advancing the Safe Routes to School national movement.
Please forward Safe Routes to School E-News to others who may be interested!
To receive future issues of E-News, email info@saferoutespartnership.org.
In this issue:
1. President-Elect Obama Supports Safe Routes to School
2. Safe Routes to School National Partnership Federal Update
More than 160 organizations support transportation and health sign-on letter
3. SRTSNP Welcomes Safe Kids Worldwide as our Newest National Partner
Click here to join the Partnership today! It’s free.
4. New Partners for Smart Growth Conference is January 22-24, 2009 in Albuquerque, NM
To register, visit www.NewPartners.org
5. 2nd Annual Southern Obesity Summit: Highway to Health
Conference in Birmingham, AL will have session on active living & community design
6. Safe Routes to School State Network Project Update
Building SRTS momentum and policy change
7. SRTS National Partnership’s Local School Project
Evaluation is underway in ten local schools in ten states
8. Georgia DOT Gets SRTS Moving
GDOT’s focus is on making the implementation of SRTS projects faster and easier
9. Wisconsin Completed First Infrastructure Project
Many others projected to be finished in 2009
10. SRTS News Throughout the Country
Local and state SRTS program news links
1. President-Elect Obama Supports Safe Routes to School
Earlier this year, Senator Barack Obama met in Chicago with board and staff members of Bikes Belong--the Partnership’s parent organization. Mr. Obama told the bike group’s leaders that if elected president, he would support funding for bicycling, walking and Safe Routes to School in the next federal transportation bill.
That same week, Mr. Obama celebrated his consolidation of the Democratic Presidential nomination by riding bikes with his two young daughters in a Chicago park.
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership will now work closely with Bikes Belong and the America Bikes coalition to ensure that the new Obama administration is fully briefed on the tangible benefits and significant progress of Safe Routes to School programs as they prepare their legislative agenda.
2. Safe Routes to School National Partnership Federal Update
169 organizations support health and transportation sign-on letter
While most Members of Congress have been in their districts campaigning for the elections, Congressional staff are laying the groundwork for the next transportation bill. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership now has a policy manager, Margo Pedroso, stationed in Washington, DC to ensure that Congress is aware of the program’s successes. Over the next several months, we will be meeting with staff for all members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committees to familiarize them with Safe Routes to School and the impact it is having in their districts and states. We are also asking for support of our recommendations for reauthorization of the program (.pdf).
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership has also taken the lead in circulating a letter for signature that asks Congress to include health performance outcomes in the next transportation bill. 169 organizations have signed on in support of a transportation bill that encourages projects that are safe, allow for active transportation, and not detrimental to the environment. The letter will be delivered to Congress this November.
It appears at this time that the House of Representatives will move on the transportation bill next spring, while the Senate may wait until later in the year to begin work. The Partnership will continue to keep you posted as things develop. Please also think ahead to any Safe Routes to School events you may have planned early next year, and consider inviting your Member of Congress to attend.
3. SRTSNP Welcomes Safe Kids USA as our Newest National Partner
Click here to join the Partnership today! It’s free.
The Partnership welcomes Safe Kids USA as our newest national partner. We also welcome our new state and local partners, and look forward to working with all partners to advance Safe Routes to School nationwide.
Safe Kids USA is the first and largest international nonprofit organization dedicated solely to preventing unintentional childhood injury. It focuses on one specific problem: more children 1 to 14 die from accidents such as motor vehicle crashes, fires, drowning, poisoning and falls than any other cause. They promote changes in attitudes, behaviors, laws and the environment to prevent unintentional injury to children. To learn more about Safe Kids USA, visit its website today.
The Partnership is working to ensure that the $612 million in Safe Routes to School federal dollars are spent, and on good projects. We are also leveraging additional resources for Safe Routes to School, developing State Networks to foster policy changes, educating policy makers, and leading the charge to create a culture that encourages safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the nation. We greatly appreciate our partners’ help in changing the habits of an entire generation.
Organizations joining the partnership commit to abide by the Memorandum of Understanding and support SRTS efforts. More than 350 groups have pledged their support for the Partnership by signing the MOU. Join our growing list of supporting organizations and become a partner affiliate today! It’s free.
4. New Partners for Smart Growth Conference is January 22-24, 2009 in Albuquerque, NM
To register, visit www.NewPartners.org
The New Partners for Smart Growth Conference has grown significantly since it began several years ago - increasing in scope, attendance, and prestige - and is now considered to be the "premier" smart growth conference held each year. The strength of this conference comes from the variety of participants and speakers who cross disciplines to share experiences and insights, and valuable tools and strategies to encourage smart growth implementation and "get it done."
The program will span three full days. There will be some pre-conference tours scheduled for Wednesday, January 21st, but the main program will kick-off on Thursday morning, January 22nd continue through Saturday afternoon. The three-day schedule includes a dynamic mix of plenaries, breakouts, implementation workshops, specialized trainings, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and coordinated networking activities. It will also feature exciting tours of local projects in the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos areas, and many other interesting case studies from throughout the region. There will be something for everybody, from veteran experts to smart-growth novices, with over 100 sessions and workshops, including three workshops that SRTSNP’s Director Deb Hubsmith will speak at. Learn from hundreds of speakers who cross disciplines to share insights, valuable tools and strategies for making smart growth a success in your community.
Visit www.NewPartners.org to get more conference details and to register for the conference! The SRTS National Partnership is a co-sponsor of this event.
5. 2nd Annual Southern Obesity Summit: Highway to Health
Conference in Birmingham, AL will have SRTS session
The 2nd Annual Southern Obesity Summit is taking place November 9-11 in Birmingham, Alabama with a focus on connecting peer obesity prevention leaders, sharing examples of successful implementation strategies, reinforcing efforts of committed southern practitioner teams, among others. Robert Ping, State Network Manager of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, will be presenting on “How Safe Routes to School Programs can Increase Physical Activity in Children and Families” in a session dedicated to Active Living and Community Design. For more information on the Southern Obesity Summit, please visit www.southernobesitysummit.org/.
6. Safe Routes to School State Network Project Update
Building SRTS momentum and policy change
The SRTS State Networks are into their second year of operation and have reprioritized the policies that will be their focus of the next six months of activity. Already the Networks (California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia) have accomplished important policy goals related to implementing the federal SRTS program, securing complete streets policies, advancing Safe Routes to School, and more. To view a report with complete summaries of partners and policies that the Networks are working on, click here (.pdf, 1,5 MB).
In Spring 2008, the ten State Network organizers began working with one low-income school in their state, called the Local School Project. We started off the 2008-09 school year by conducting parent surveys, student tallies, and at four of the schools also collected observational data and did focus groups with parents. On October 8, all of the schools celebrated Walk and Bike to School Day, and participation averaged 60% of the student populations! We generated media stories, inspired parents and kids, and gave away everything from food to bicycles. Now schools are applying for federal SRTS funds, and school teams are planning the ongoing activities for the year, such as walkabouts, walking school buses, and pedestrian and bicycle safety education classes.
For more information about the SRTS State Network Project, go to www.saferoutespartnership.org/state/4373.
7. SRTS National Partnership’s Local School Project
Evaluation is underway in ten local schools in ten states
The Partnership’s Local School Project began in February 2008 and will run through December 2009 in conjunction with the State Network Project. Each of the ten State Networks did an analysis of schools through a selection matrix, which ensured the local schools met certain criteria. Once the school was selected, city and school officials were asked to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Evaluation is currently underway in all ten local schools. Click here (.pdf, 74 KB) to view the locations and names of the ten schools at which the Partnership is implementing its Local School Project.
The Networks provide technical assistance to each of these schools, but rely on volunteer management at six of the schools. Four sites, located in California, Georgia, Virginia, and Washington, DC have been assigned a Technical Service Provider (TSP), who directly manages the school’s volunteers, program activities, data collection, and communication. After a nationwide search for an evaluator, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership selected the University of California-Berkeley Traffic Safety Center and PPH Partners as the independent health evaluation consultant. The team previously conducted SRTS evaluations in California, numerous bicycle and pedestrian safety studies nationwide, and helped to develop national evaluation tools for the National Center for Safe Routes to School.
For more on the evaluation of the Local School Project, visit our website to see useful resources like our evaluation handbook, SRTS Logic Model, evaluation timeline for schools, local school selection matrix, and more. Thanks go out to all of the volunteers working on this project in the 10 states, and to our funders for the Local School Project, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
8. Georgia DOT Gets SRTS Moving
GDOT’s focus is on making the implementation of SRTS projects faster and easier
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has kicked its Safe Routes to School program into action, positioning its infrastructure and non-infrastructure implementation in ways that will help get projects and activities undertaken more quickly and easily. GDOT has a federal allocation of almost $17 million for its SRTS program.
The SRTS program, led by SRTS Coordinator Kelechi Nwosu, and assisted by others like the GDOT Bike/Ped Coordinator and a SRTS Advisory Committee, recently finalized a Georgia SRTS Guidebook. The book is divided into 11 chapters, and each is now downloadable from the GDOT website.
On the infrastructure front, GDOT bid for and hired a consultant team that will first help guide localities through an infrastructure application process and then do all the design and build aspects of the GDOT-selected projects. Applications for the first grant round became available in mid-October and are due in mid-December 2008. The application and related information is available online. The program also held a series of four infrastructure Application Workshops around the state in October 2008.
On the non-infrastructure front, the program is in the process of bidding and hiring another consultant team that will set up and run a statewide SRTS Resource Center that will provide both hands-on and remote support and services to enrolled schools and localities in Georgia. GDOT anticipates that the Resource Center will be fully functioning in early 2009.
GDOT anticipates that schools and children will be better served, and projects will be completed quicker and easier, with centralized and expert resources and economies of scale through their statewide model for training, materials, public information, design, construction, and evaluation.
For more information on the Georgia SRTS program, please contact SRTS Coordinator, Kelechi Nwosu or visit the Georgia SRTS program website.
9. Wisconsin Completed First Infrastructure Project
Many others projected to be finished in 2009
Wisconsin has put a large emphasis on Safe Routes to School planning and has not only encouraged communities to start their SRTS programs by creating a SRTS plan but has provided financial assistance to make that happen. In 2007, 25 communities received funding to develop comprehensive SRTS plans, and in 2008 an additional 18 received funding.
Most of the communities that received assistance in 2007 have completed their planning and are now working to implement the recommendations from their plans. In the small, rural community of Chetek in northwestern Wisconsin the city and county Highway Department have reached an agreement to lower the speed limit and improve the crossings on several roads near the elementary school. In addition, the community will be doing publicity about these changes and increasing enforcement. In addition, the school district will be implementing bike safety into the curriculum as well as teaching bicycle and pedestrian awareness in the driver’s education class since high school drivers were a concern in the community as the middle school and high school have adjoining buildings. Chetek also received a 2008 infrastructure award to add sidewalks in key locations near their elementary and middle school as well as to add bicycle racks.
The seven non-infrastructure projects awarded in 2007 in Wisconsin are also in progress including a bicycle education program in Wisconsin’s largest city, Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Public Schools in collaboration with the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin has begun a project to increase the number of children that bicycle to school. The primary component of this project is a comprehensive bicycle education program that will be done in more than 40 schools in Milwaukee. In the first year of the program the educational programming has been delivered to approximately 15 schools.
Wisconsin has also completed its first infrastructure project with many more now in progress with completion expected in 2009. In central Wisconsin, the DC Everest Junior High School project installed a new sidewalk on the street in front of the school, added a sidewalk from the school entrance to connect to the new sidewalk, and changed the traffic flow in front of the school to one-way to minimize conflicts. In addition, a new multi-use path was created to allow students the ability to enter at the back of the school. Now that these infrastructure improvements have been made, the school will be implementing pedestrian safety lessons in physical education classes, promoting bicycle safety, and promoting traffic safety to the community.
For more information about Wisconsin’s SRTS Program, please contact the SRTS Coordinator, Renee Callaway or by phone at 608-266-3973. Program information is also available at www.dot.wisconsin.gov/localgov/aid/saferoutes.htm.
10. SRTS News Throughout the Country
Local and state SRTS program news links
Safe Routes to School news around the country keeps growing! Updated regularly, see our new SRTS in the News media center for the latest in local, state, and national SRTS news.
Help Grow the Partnership!
Joining the Partnership is free. Please encourage other organizations, schools, businesses, and government agencies to join the Safe Routes to School National Partnership.
Funding for the Safe Routes to School National Partnership has been generously provided by the Bikes Belong Coalition, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and partner affiliates.
For more information, contact:
Deb Hubsmith, Director
Safe Routes to School National Partnership
deb@saferoutespartnership.org
www.saferoutespartnership.org
(415) 454-7430