Resource Library

Key takeaways:

• Active travel to school (ATS) increases children’s levels of physical activity. The result is improved overall health in the bones, weight management, cardiovascular fitness, cognition, and mental well-being.
• There is a lack of accessible surveillance data that focuses on ATS or the physical activity of children. The data that is available is maintained at the local level. There is no comprehensive ATS data that would enable use in policy change or programming requirements at the national level.
• The latest data from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) dates back to 2017. While it contains useful information, such as only ten percent of students were walking or biking to school, and beyond a one-mile distance, only seven percent walk or bike to school, the survey is not conducted at consistent intervals. The last time the survey collected information related to ATS programming was in 2009.
• The authors propose that the NHTS should be built using tools such as global positioning systems (GPS), maps, geographic information systems (GIS), and direct observation. These tools can provide a great deal of information about sidewalk conditions, the presence of bike racks, and other characteristics of walkable, bikeable, and rollable routes.
• Using objectively measured data and on-the-ground perceptions together can guide neighborhood-level action.
• ATS surveillance can contribute to policies and programs that support walkability, bikeability, and rollability in the built environment (e.g. sidewalk maintenance policies, Safe Routes to School programs, etc.).
• Equity can be integrated into local surveillance methods, metrics, and analysis more adeptly due to their smaller, more community-based nature. Rather than approaching barriers to ATS from a state level, neighborhood-level surveillance enables the integration of community perspectives.

Two infographics break down the history and current structure of federal funding for Safe Routes to School.

On Tuesday, May 17^th from 11 am to noon Mountain, the Colorado Department of Transportation is hosting a free webinar presented by the Safe Routes Partnership:

On Wednesday, May 18^th from 3pm-4pm CT the Houston Health Department is hosting a free webinar presented by the Safe Routes Partnership:

In partnership with the League of American Bicyclists, Safe Routes Partnership will host a Federal Policy Webinar.

Check out the new publication Taking on Traffic Laws: A How-To Guide for Decriminalizing Mobility, a collaborative effort between the Safe Routes Partnership and BikeWalkKC!

On Tuesday, April 19^th from 11 am to noon Mountain, the Colorado Department of Transportation is hosting a free webinar presented by the Safe Routes Partnership:

The Safe Routes Partnership is pleased to announce the third and final in the ATP Cycle 6 series of webinars focused on California’s Active Transportation Program: Changes in the ATP Guidelines - Applications and Scoring in Cycle 6.

On Thursday, March 31st from 3pm-4pm CT the Houston Health Department is hosting a free webinar presented by the Safe Routes Partnership: Turning Enthusiasm into Action: How to Get a Safe Routes to School Program Up and Running at Your School. 

Check out the new publication Taking on Traffic Laws: A How-To Guide for Decriminalizing Mobility, a collaborative effort between the Safe Routes Partnership and BikeWalkKC!

Join us as we share strategies for designing Safe Routes to School events that serve multiple purposes including encouraging walking and rolling, conducting community research, evaluating your program, and sustaining momentum beyond a single event.

Please join us for the second in our 2021-2022 ATP Webinar Series. The Safe Routes Partnership began hosting webinars for applicants to the Active Transportation Program in Cycle 5, and we are excited to provide another round of webinars in anticipation of Cycle 6.

To mark the launch of our new toolkit, Let’s Get Together: A Guide for Engaging Communities and Creating Change, the Safe Routes Partnership is hosting a free two-part webinar and Zoom networking session.

Join us as we explore strategies for culturally responsive Safe Routes to School programming and what you can do to engage students and families facing barriers to participation like racial and cultural norms, language, and income.

Join us as we dive into engineering strategies for Safe Routes to School projects.

Key takeaways:

• Modifying the built environment to increase walkability and promote physical activity often has the added benefit of reducing the risk of pedestrian injury. However, how to best measure pedestrian injury is not clearly defined in physical activity literature.
• Crash data from police reports include the frequency of pedestrian injury but not the severity.
• Few studies regarding the creation of walkable communities include data that measure the severity of pedestrian injury.
• Due to the strict criteria applied to this research, limited studies were fully evaluated. The studies that were evaluated were categorized by four different interventions:  
  • The impact of pedestrian countdown timer signals (PCS) on pedestrian motor vehicle collisions (PMVC).
  • The use of crash data from police reports to evaluate unsignalized pedestrian crossings and injuries.
  • Traffic calming interventions focused on slowing traffic including speed humps, speed bumps, and shared space.
  • The impacts of Vision Zero initiatives or comprehensive traffic safety programs, on pedestrian safety.