Resource Library

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.

This month saw the release of the highly anticipated film "Selma." Structured around three protest marches in 1965, the film follows Martin Luther King Jr. and many other civil rights leaders as they risked their lives in three attempts to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to Alabama state capital Montgomery in defiance of segregation and oppression.

At a time when bicycling and walking represents 12 percent of all trips, dozens of cities are added bikesharing and thousands of schools are implementing Safe Routes to School programs, some in Congress want to take away the small amount of funding Congress invests in bicycling and walking.

As we are all thinking of getting more physically active this May for National Physical Fitness month, it only makes sense that we look at policies and practices to increase access to opportunities to be more physically active. This brings us to shared use, of course!

This is the first in a series of blog posts highlighting pivotal moments in the history of the Safe Routes to School movement.

Dear Deb and Wendi: Thank you so much for creating the Safe Routes to School program sixteen years ago. It has really made a difference at Kent Middle School. I now walk to school every day I have a chance to. Sixty percent of our school now travels green, and it is truly because of the commitment you two have made. – Kent Middle School student, 2015

Written by Risa Wilkerson, Safe Routes Partnership Board Chair

It is with a heavy heart today that the Safe Routes Partnership (Safe Routes Partnership) mourns the passing of its founder, Deb Hubsmith. Her family announced the news yesterday afternoon.

“Walking is one of the most powerful tools we have to increase physical activity and emotional well-being for kids.” These are the words of U.S. Surgeon General Dr.

"Deb was so firmly committed to creating a better future for our children, and she will be missed."  -- United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, in a tribute to Deb Hubsmith at the 2015 Walking Summit in Washington DC.

This guest blog post was written by Nancy Pullen Seufert, Director of the National Center for Safe Routes to School.

When we talk about federal transportation dollars in this space, we most often focus on the Transportation Alternatives Program, since it has a strong focus on funding Safe Routes to School programs and bicycling and walking infrastructure.

In 1935, as part of the New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration moved 203 Midwestern families from their economically depressed farms to form the Matanuska Colony in what is now Palmer, Alaska. These agricultural families migrated from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, approximately 45 miles north of Anchorage, 24 years before Alaska became a state. With 40 acres allocated per family, these farming colonists cultivated the land into what is now the heart of Alaska’s agricultural production.

This blog post is authored by Safe Routes Partnership research advisor, Stephanie Tepperberg.