Safe Routes Launch Resources

By working with local planners to make your school and community more active, you can help ensure that polices that are in place support, encourage, and sustain healthy lifestyles.

School policies can impact the amount of physical activity that children receive on a regular basis. Because of this, it’s important to be able to identify both barrier policies, which discourage, prohibit, or otherwise present barriers to physical activity, and supportive policies, which encourage, support, or enable physical activity opportunities.

Ideas to grow and sustain your Safe Routes to School or walking and biking programs.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for creating walking route maps using free tools.

The rate of childhood obesity has increased four-fold over the past forty years, leading to serious health risks for children. 

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing District-Wide Impact of Safe Routes to School: Educating School District Transportation Departments" that took place on April 18, 2013.

A walking club is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to encourage children to walk by keeping track of their mileage and/or minutes and rewarding them for being physically active.

This report offers insights into how newly expanding access to data can assist in improving walking and biking programs, provides an overview of the current state of data access and its limitations, and highlights case studies of communities and organizations using data to make walking and bicycling programs and policies function more effectively.

This toolkit is designed to help parents, educators, and community members plan and organize a walking school bus using adult volunteers as leaders. 

Planning a Fired Up Fun Run is easy! Use our resources and materials to raise and collect funds both in person and online.

This guide offers practical tools for adult facilitators to support middle school students in the promotion of safe walking, bicycling, and public transit use to and from school. Student-led campaigns can generate enthusiasm and improve the social conditions for a Safe Routes to School program!

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing the Local Impact of Safe Routes to School: Educating Local Elected Officials" that took place on March 21, 2013.

This tool is designed to help school board members, administrators, families of students, and community members create and implement district policies that support active transportation and Safe Routes to School programs. 

The Safe Routes to School Local Policy Guide was published to help local communities and schools create, enact and implement policies which will support active and healthy community environments that encourage safe walking and bicycling and physical activity by children through a Health in All Policies approach. 

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing District-Wide Impact of Safe Routes to School: Educating School District Transportation Departments" that took place on April 18, 2013.

These new resources tell the stories of state- and local-level campaign wins for active transportation funding, Safe Routes to School, Complete Streets, shared use, and environmental justice policies. 

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing City Involvement in Safe Routes to School: Educating Municipal Transportation Departments" that took place on June 20, 2013.

This fact sheet illustrates how to include walking and biking into comprehensive plans. 

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing City Involvement in Safe Routes to School: Educating Municipal Transportation Departments" that took place on June 20, 2013. Watch an audio-visual recording here. View Powerpoint slides: Gabe Graff, City of Portland- slides; Nancy Nichols, City of Fort Collins - slides.

This fact sheet provides an overview of why it is important to engage school district leaders in Safe Routes to School and the results that can be achieved through a strong partnership.

Student transportation departments have the potential to focus on more than just busing students to school. 

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing District-Wide Impact of Safe Routes to School: Educating School District Transportation Departments" that took place on April 18, 2013.

One of the best ways to make sure that walking, bicycling, and Safe Routes to School programs are vigorous and sustained over time in your district is to include these programs in school district policies.

This webinar from September 29, 2014 discusses strategies and best practices for advancing shared use agreements.

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "New Funding, New Partners, New Game 201: How to Build Safe Routes to School into Regional Governments" that took place on January 10, 2013. 

Tips for Walking Safely to School and in Life

This document describes ways that parents can get involved in policy change and improvements to the built environment to enable and encourage more walking and bicycling, which is a healthy form of physical activity.

Use this checklist to assess the walkability of your route or neighborhood.

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "Maximizing District-Wide Impact of Safe Routes to School: Educating  Principals and School Boards that took place on May 16, 2013.

This checklist offers questions and actions to consider when preparing to work with your school board in support of Safe Routes to School, whether through official board policies, revised procedures, or other approaches.

These action briefs are a companion to the webinar "New Funding, New Partners, New Game 201: How to Build Safe Routes to School into Regional Governments" that took place on January 10, 2013. 

A bike rodeo is an event that provides elementary and middle school children with the opportunity to learn, practice, and demonstrate bike handling skills in a fun, safe, and encouraging atmosphere.

Tips for Riding a Bicycle to School and in Life

This fact sheet includes tips and best practices for effective messaging as well as a media inventory of campaigns promoting biking and walking.