Last December, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) board approved $2.8 million for the Safe Routes to School program, along with a process for restructuring the education and non-infrastructure components. This is great news for partners in the city/county, who had feared the program could be cut in light of comments from board members at prior meetings expressing concern about citywide coordination of the program.
The board’s vote fully funds the Safe Routes to School non-infrastructure program, and directs city staff to develop a plan to restructure the program by 2019. The restructuring will include placing the infrastructure and non-infrastructure components under the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA) to increase coordination between education programs, the school crossing guard program, and capital projects around schools. In the meantime, there will be a series of informational meetings to discuss the restructuring process.
With passage of the policy resolution funding Safe Routes to School, San Francisco became the final county in the Bay Area to submit its programming allocations for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s (MTC) One Bay Area Grant (OBAG) cycle 2. San Francisco receives over $42 million through OBAG. Thanks to dedicated work from Safe Routes to Schools advocates during the development of OBAG 2, counties cannot reduce the amount of OBAG funds they use to support Safe Routes to School. Therefore, San Francisco is required to utilize a minimum of $1.8 million to support Safe Routes; the county fortunately exceeds that minimum requirement.
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