This is it!
Can you feel the momentum building for getting kids active in schools? Can you feel the walking movement growing? Can you hear the call to action to ensure our communities are designed to help people move?
We are ready to seize the moment. Are you ready to join us?
Use the extra energy and daylight of this springtime of year to help more children walk, hop, skip or bicycle to school. The Active Living Research annual conference, held in February 2013, highlighted research relevant to Safe Routes to School that can help you show the proven benefits of your program.
Two of the session presentations are highlighted below:
The Nevada statewide Safe Routes to School program is in its third round of national Safe Routes to School (SRTS) funding. Funding started in 2008 and the third round of SAFETEA-LU money is funded in 2012 and 2013. The state program covers the major urban areas in the state along with rural areas with a mixture of infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects. Approximately $10 million dollars has been spent or committed so far. There have been 25 projects with 12 partners in the state.
I recently had the opportunity to speak to Mayor Carolyn Thompson of Elkton, Tennessee. Elkton has fewer than 20,000 residents and is about twenty-five miles north of Huntsville, Alabama. Elkton has one elementary school with 327 students in pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade. They also do not have any sidewalks in their town.
Of 52 documented Complete Streets policies in Florida, more than 20 were passed in 2012-2013. Florida network members were instrumental in the success of many of these policies.
California is proposing to do something revolutionary for walking and bicycling. California Governor Jerry Brown’s Administration has proposed a new Active Transportation Program (ATP) that will enable the state to become a leader in making walking and bicycling part of the mainstream transportation system.