December 2021 E-News

1. New Safe Routes to Parks Funding Guides
2. New Resource:  Working Together to Make Meaningful Change: A Toolkit for Engaging Communities Across Colorado
3. Safe Routes to School: In Law, but No Dedicated Money. What Does it Mean?
4. Reconnecting to the New Majority
5. The Year in Walkability – And What’s Next
6. Thank You for Supporting Safe Routes Partnership!

1. New Safe Routes to Parks Funding Guides

When it comes to creating safe, connected streets and sidewalks, having enough money to build safer facilities is one of the biggest barriers. Safe Routes to Parks has created four new resources to assist you in identifying the right funding options for your projects.

• Playing Matchmaker: Choosing the Right Funding Mechanism for Your Safe Routes to Parks Project - this fact sheet can help guide you toward the right funding sources based on your goals and community context.
• Decoding the Jargon: Local Budget Basics for Funding Safe Routes to Parks - this factsheet offers an overview of how active transportation and parks and recreation are typically funded in local city budgets.
• Prioritize and Partner Up to Pay for Safe Routes to Parks Infrastructure - this factsheet offers strategies to move existing funding toward improving safe and equitable park access and the partnerships that can help facilitate both funding and implementation.
• Ready, Set, Go Bonds for Park Access - this fact sheet tells the story of two cities’ approach to paying for parks and connections to green space through the use of general obligation bonds.

2. New Report: Routes of Health: Working Together to Make Meaningful Change: A Toolkit for Engaging Communities Across Colorado

Safe Routes Partnership and the Colorado Department of Transportation have created a new guide to assist individuals, organizations, and government agencies that are working on community engagement in Colorado. Offering tips and strategies for communities to work together to make meaningful change, the new guide centers community members at the heart of the process, walking you through each step of the engagement framework, and providing additional resources and guiding questions to help you improve your practice. Explore the resource.

3. Safe Routes to School: In Law, but No Dedicated Money. What Does it Mean?

Now that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 has been signed into law, we are seeing a flurry of excitement about what it means for Safe Routes to School, walking, and bicycling. But what does the new law require and what does the restored section on Safe Routes to School programs mean for advocates and agencies? Our newest federal policy blog can help you make sense of what it means, why it happened like this, and what to do about it.

4. Reconnecting to the New Majority

The League of American Bicyclist has released a new report, “Reconnecting the New Majority,” to update our understanding of demographic trends in bicycling, identify areas of focus to ensure that all people — particularly Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) — have access to safe bicycling, and further progress actions that promote equity in bicycling.

 5. The Year in Walkability – and What’s Next

The past year has been extraordinarily eventful for the issues we care about. New policy directions from the Biden administration. Changed behavior and changed streets due to the pandemic. Direct actions and proposals to confront racism in public spaces and public policies. A massive infrastructure bill. The promise of a National Roadway Safety Strategy. America Walks will bring together a panel from USDOT, the CDC, local government, and local activism to discuss what happened and more importantly, what’s next. Register for the webinar on December 21st from 2 – 3 pm.

 6. Thank You for Supporting Safe Routes Partnership!

Thank you to everyone who supported Safe Routes to School on Giving Tuesday. We sincerely appreciate your gift. In case you missed it, it's not too late to donate and make a year end gift to support the work of the Safe Routes Partnership.