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Florida

Florida SRTS Program
Managed by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Florida’s federally funded Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program is the source for state and District contact details, federal SRTS funding amounts, SRTS applications and guidelines, and state SRTS program information.

Florida DOT SRTS Coordinator
Pat Pieratte
(850) 245-1529
pat.pieratte@dot.state.fl.us
www.srtsfl.org 

Click on any of the menu items below for more information.
Florida SRTS Federal Funding
Application Guidelines
State Advisory Committee
State Outreach Programs
Evaluation Methods
Success Story
Other Statewide and Regional Programs
Florida Partner Affiliates
Legislation and Policies

Florida SRTS Federal Funding
Florida’s SRTS funding totals $29,100,655 and includes the following annual apportionments:

Application Guidelines
Florida’s SRTS program is unlike any other in that the first Call for Applications solicited projects for all five years' worth of federal funding (2005-2009). The seven Florida DOT Districts received the applications, selected projects, got them approved by the State SRTS Coordinator, and entered them into the five-year Work Program, to be funded as federal funds are released.

The first call for applications closed on June 1, 2007. Awards were announced by the Districts in the fall of 2007, and some local implementation began as early as November 2007. Florida issued its second Call for Applications on November 30, 2007, for anticipated 2010 funds for infrastructure projects, and for remaining and anticipated funds through 2010 for non-infrastructure activities. Florida plans to continue issuing annual Calls for Applications each fall, subject to renewal of the federal funding.

For more information, please see Florida’s SRTS program. 

State Advisory Committee
As a large, decentralized agency, FDOT does not have an official Advisory Committee. The State SRTS Coordinator meets about twice a year with SRTS personnel from the seven districts to discuss all aspects of the SRTS program. The SRTS Coordinator and District personnel also stay in touch by e-mail, phone and meetings in the Districts, and work together on any proposed modifications to the state program.

The District Safety Engineers oversee the SRTS programs, handle the infrastructure projects, and work with the District Community Traffic Safety Team Coordinators and/or District Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinators on the non-infrastructure activities. Each of the seven districts forms an application review team made up of DOT employees to review and rank the applications received. The proposed projects are then sent to the state Safe Routes to School Coordinator for a final review.

State Outreach Programs
The state SRTS Coordinator works with many statewide agencies and groups that have goals similar to those of the SRTS program. This collaboration includes presentations on the SRTS program at statewide conferences and meetings. The Coordinator also serves on the Safe Kids Advisory Council and works with the Department of Education to inform each school district about the SRTS program and application opportunites. The Department of Education also sent out 10 copies of the new Walk Smart and Bike Smart interactive CDs for grades K-3, to each School District, and also to individual teachers upon request. These CDs were purchased using statewide SRTS funds.

At the District level, the SRTS contacts disseminate information on SRTS through meetings, e-mail and other communications, to make sure that potential applicants and sponsors know about the SRTS program and application opportunities.

Florida sponsored the new Skills for Local Safe Routes to School Program Development, put on by the National Center for Safe Routes to School, in conjunction with the Pro-Bike/Pro-Walk Florida Conference in late August 2007. District Non-Infrastructure coordinators and coordinators of local non-infrastructure activities funded by SRTS, as well as those interested in developing non-infrastructure activities, explored how to set up a local SRTS coalition and examples of good non-infrastructure activities.

The state SRTS Coordinator and an Engineer co-worker were trained in September 2007 to present the SRTS National Course at schools upon request.


Evaluation Methods
Applications require an estimate of how many children currently use the route and how many could use the route if the project is implemented. For the funded projects, Florida requires before and after data using the National Center for Safe Routes to School Student Arrival and Departure Tally Sheet and Parent Survey. 

Success Story
Volusia and Flagler Counties, Florida: Expanding Safety Education
The Volusia County School District in Florida used non-infrastructure funding to train Volusia and Flagler County teachers using the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education program. This training expanded the program to a total of seven elementary schools in Volusia and trained four new new physical education teachers from Flagler County.

Contact:
William J. Poniatowski, Jr
wponiato@volusia.k12.fl.us
(386) 255-6475 

Other Statewide and Regional Programs
Florida already had two statewide programs that support SRTS, long before the federal SRTS program began.

The Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program, based at University of Florida, provides training courses for physical education teachers, as well as other teachers and youth leaders, on how to teach pedestrian and bicycle safety skills in school or other settings.  This program is funded by FDOT Human Resource Development (HRD) funds, which pay for the state trainers’ time, travel and expenses. There may be a training cost if regional trainers do the instruction. Every school receives one curriculum set as part of the training. There is a modest cost for additional curriculum sets for teachers, and for all youth leaders.  This program is now finalizing its curriculum update and is about to pilot test the League Certified Instructor-2 Course, a new national curriculum/training by the League of American Bicyclists, focusing on education programs for school teachers in pedestrian and bicycle safety education. 

Local implementation of the program can be funded by Traffic Safety (402) grants, or by SRTS funds, and mini-grants using Florida’s Share the Road tag revenues are available to fund items that can’t be funded through either grant program. Since the HRD funding level is fixed, the program is exploring different ways to meet the increased demand generated by the SRTS program. For example, FDOT recently purchased enough of the new Walk Smart and Bike Smart interactive DVD sets to accompany the updated curriculum sets.

The Florida School Crossing Guard Program also funded through HRD funds, trains local crossing guard trainers around the state, who in turn train their local crossing guards. There is no cost for the training. However, each local agency pays either the travel costs for their attendees to travel to a course or pays for the Administrator to travel to them. Administration of this program is also being turned over to the University of Florida, although the new Crossing Guard Administrator will be housed in the DOT Safety Office in Tallahassee. Some overhead costs are absorbed by the Safety Office. Statewide SRTS funds have been used to completely update the Crossing Guard curriculum and to create a Crossing Guard website which can be used for local trainers and the Administrator to communicate and to document the training of trainers and guards.

Florida Partner Affiliates
Find out which organizations in your state have pledged their support for the Safe Routes to School movement.

Legislation and Policies

State Physical Education Requirements
Florida Governor Charlie Crist is a strong supporter of physical education. A new law (.pdf download) was passed by the 2007 legislature, requiring 150 minutes a week (or 30 minutes a day) of PE for K-5th graders, and encouraging 225 minutes of PE a week (or 45 minutes a day) for 6-8th graders. This new law will make it easier for the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program to be implemented during school hours so that more children will have the safe walking and bicycling skills needed to make SRTS programs successful.

Wellness Policies
School wellness policies are required to be developed by each School District, and many of these policies also support SRTS programs.