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Quick Facts

Background and Statistics

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a national and international movement to create safe, convenient, and fun opportunities for children to bicycle and walk to and from schools. The program has been designed to reverse the decline in children walking and bicycling to schools. Safe Routes to School can also play a critical role in reversing the alarming nationwide trend toward childhood obesity and inactivity.

In 1969, approximately 50% of children walked or bicycled to school, with approximately 87% of children living within one mile of school walking or bicycling. Today, fewer than 15% of schoolchildren walk or bicycle to school. As a result, kids today are less active, less independent, and less healthy. As much as 20 to 30% of morning traffic can be generated by parents driving their children to schools, and traffic-related crashes are the top cause of death and major injury for children in the U.S. ages 1 to 17.

Concerned by the long-term health and traffic consequences of this trend, in 2005, the U.S. Congress approved $612 million in funding for five years of state implementation of SRTS programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Congress has extended the program at $183 million per year starting in FY2010 until a long-term transportation reauthorization is complete. Communities are using this funding to construct new bike lanes, pathways, and sidewalks, as well as to launch Safe Routes to School education, promotion and enforcement campaigns in K-8 schools.

Safe Routes to School programs are built on collaborative partnerships among many stakeholders that include educators, parents, students, elected officials, engineers, city planners, business and community leaders, health officials, and bicycle and pedestrian advocates. The most successful SRTS programs incorporate the five E’s—evaluation, education, encouragement, engineering, and enforcement. The goal of Safe Routes to School is to get more children bicycling and walking to schools safely every day.

Helpful Statistics on Safe Routes to School

Traffic Congestion: Neighborhoods are becoming increasingly clogged by traffic. By boosting the number of children walking and bicycling, Safe Routes to School projects reduce traffic congestion.

• Within the span of one generation, the percentage of children walking or bicycling to school has dropped precipitously, from approximately 50% in 1969 to just 13% in 2009.
• While distance to school is the most commonly reported barrier to walking and bicycling, private vehicles still account for half of school trips between 1/4 and 1/2 mile—a distance easily covered on foot or bike.
• As much as 20 to 30% of morning traffic is generated by parents driving their children to schools.
• A California study showed that schools that received infrastructure improvements through the Safe Routes to School program yielded walking and bicycling increases in the range of 20 to 200 percent.

Safety: Safe Routes to School projects focus on infrastructure improvements, traffic education for students, and driver enforcement that provide positive impacts on the safety of children, many of whom already walk or bicycle to school in unsafe conditions.

• Half of children struck by cars near schools are hit by parents driving other children to school.
• Approximately 23,000 children age 14 and under were injured and 429 were killed while walking or bicycling in the United States in 2006.
• Thirty percent of traffic deaths for children ages 0-14 happen when children are walking and bicycling.
• Children walking and bicycling to school represent 11% of injuries and 24% of fatalities during the school commute, but just 14% of trips and less than 2% of miles traveled.
• A safety analysis by the California Department of Transportation estimated that the safety benefit of SRTS was up to a 49 percent decrease in the childhood bicycle and pedestrian collision rates.

Health and Obesity: Children today are simply not getting enough physical activity, contributing to growing rates of obesity and obesity-related health problems, such as diabetes. Safe Routes to School projects make it safer for more children to walk and bicycle to school, which will help address this obesity crisis among children by creating increases in physical activity.

• Over the past 40 years, rates of obesity have soared among children of all ages in the United States, and approximately 25 million children and adolescents—more than 33%—are now overweight or obese or at risk of becoming so.
• Kids are less active today, and 23% of children get no free time physical activity at all.
• The prevalence of obesity is so great that today’s generation of children may be the first in over 200 years to live less healthy and have a shorter lifespan than their parents.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that obesity cost America $117 billion in the year 2000, and physical inactivity results in $76 billion in direct medical costs annually.
• People living in auto-oriented suburbs drive more, walk less, and are more obese than people living in walkable communities. For each hour of driving per day, obesity increases 6 percent, but walking for transportation reduces the risk of obesity.
• Walking one mile to and from school each day is two-thirds of the recommended sixty minutes of physical activity a day. Plus, children who walk to school have higher levels of physical activity throughout the day.

Environment: Safe Routes to School projects increase the number of children walking and bicycling to school, which also cuts down on the number of cars. As cars emit pollutants for each mile traveled, reducing traffic can improve the quality of air that children breathe in and around their schools.

• Children exposed to traffic pollution are more likely to have asthma, permanent lung deficits, and a higher risk of heart and lung problems as adults.
• Over the last 25 years, among children ages 5 to 14, there has been a 74 percent increase in asthma cases. In addition, 14 million days of school are missed every year due to asthma.
• One-third of schools are in “air pollution danger zones.”
• Schools that are designed so children can walk and bicycle have measurably better air quality.
• A 5% increase in a neighborhood’s “walkability” reduces vehicle miles traveled by 6%.
• Returning to 1969 levels of walking and bicycling to school would save 3.2 billion vehicle miles,
  1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide and 89,000 tons of other pollutants—equal to keeping more than 250,000 cars off the road for a year.

Bus Transportation Costs: Schools often make cutbacks in bus routes to save money—meaning that more children will be walking and bicycling in potentially unsafe conditions, or more parents will drive their children, which increases traffic congestion and air quality concerns.

• Approximately 55% of children are bused, and we spend $17.5 billion nationally each year on school bus transportation, an average of $692 per child transported per year.
• Eliminating one bus route, based on average per-pupil expenditure and average number of pupils per bus, would save a school district approximately $37,000 per year.
• Each parent that replaces a bus ride with driving their child to school uses approximately 180 additional gallons of fuel per year, spends an additional $663 on fuel, and puts 3600 miles on their car.

About the Safe Routes to School National Partnership
Launched in August 2005, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership is a fast-growing network of hundreds of organizations, government agencies and groups working to set goals, share best practices, secure funding, and provide educational materials to agencies that implement Safe Routes to School programs. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership’s mission is to serve a diverse national community of organizations that advocates for safe bicycling and walking to and from schools throughout the United States. www.saferoutespartnership.org