Just in time for International Walk to School Day, a new study has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association that confirms what those of us in the field have long known: Safe Routes to School programs are effective at increasing rates of walking and bicycling to and from school.
When I came to the Safe Routes Partnership more than a year and a half ago, I was encouraged by our founder Deb Hubsmith to do two things. First, find every way to raise the drum beat of equity in my work, and second, read profusely to gain best practices and tactics to push progress forward.
For years, public health and community transportation planning worked together like kids at an sixth grade dance: boys on one side, girls on the other. They see each other, but there’s not much, if any, mingling.
The largest jurisdiction in the Greater Washington, DC region has just completed its first health impact assessment (HIA), assessing the potential health impacts of a proposed transit center along a state highway corridor.
The Greek philosopher Thales and the Roman poet Juvenal both wrote about the way in which physical health and mental health are intertwined, seeking the ideal of a “sound mind in a sound body.”
Throughout my entire life I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world. I found my niche in the late 1990s with Safe Routes to School and never looked back.
August may be slow here in Washington D.C., but the coming several months are a great time for you at home to highlight the changes Safe Routes to School are making in your community.
"It is just not safe to let my child walk or ride their bike to school." So said respondents from the initial survey that the PTA of Linwood Elementary in Milwaukie, Oregon, sent out last spring. They didn’t know that 'Safe Routes to School' – with capital letters – existed. But they knew something was not right, and they wanted to fix it.