Safe Routes to School

Since our last federal policy blog two weeks ago covering Committee action, the House transportation bill, the INVEST Act, has expanded and moved forward.  As a reminder, the INVEST Act includes an estimated $7 billion over four years for active transportation projects and improving safety for people biking, walking, and rolling, plus many strong policy changes.  Given this, 32 national organizations joined with the League of American Bicyclists, American Heart Associat

This blog post was written by Margaux Mennesson, Marisa Jones, Michelle Lieberman, Margo Pedroso and Cass Isidro. 

Over the last several months, the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice and against police brutality have prompted our team at the Safe Routes Partnership to critically examine many of the systems, strategies, and programs that support Safe Routes.

Over the course of 24 hours spread over two days, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee under the leadership of Chairman DeFazio (D-OR) considered amendments to the INVEST in America Act, which is the House version of the surface transportation reauthorization bill.  Some members were in the Committee room, spaced out for safety, and others Members participated via webcam, while audience members watched via YouTube. 

The Safe Routes Partnership is excited to introduce the Back to School 2020 Working Group participants! We selected 18 individuals from around 180 applications from Safe Routes to School coordinators, parents, teachers, planners, crossing guards and advocates who volunteered their time and expertise. We are so encouraged by this overwhelming level of interest, and in addition to the Back to School 2020 Working Group, we are organizing some other opportunities to have these important conversations about returning to school, and will share details in the coming weeks. 

For more than 15 years, Safe Routes to School programs have used the five E’s (Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation, and Engineering) as their organizing framework. In recent years, we added a sixth E, Equity, to bring the focus towards creating healthy, thriving communities for people of all ages, races, ethnicities, incomes, and abilities. Effective immediately, we are dropping Enforcement as one of the 6 E’s of Safe Routes to School.