Enforcement & safety management

Introduction

Sometimes starting small makes sense. Instead of trying to inundate the city of Cape Girardeau, MO, with a wide range of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) activities, Dr. Mark Langenfeld, a professor in the department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation at Southeast Missouri State University, focused on organizing a Walk to School Day at Alma Schrader Elementary School, and the event received tremendous publicity.

Introduction

New Hope obtained a $31,200 SRTS grant in 2007 from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to help slow down vehicle traffic around its Sunny Hollow Elementary School and also to develop an education program for students at the school. The school has 517 students, and few walk or bicycle to school due to challenges created by busy roads, said Eric Weiss, Community Development Assistant for New-Hope.

Introduction

Stowe Elementary School in Duluth, MN, has approximately 375 students in preschool through the fifth grade. The school is two blocks from a highway, which creates a barrier for children who want to bicycle or walk to school but must cross the highway. Additionally, many of the neighborhoods surrounding the school lack sidewalks, so some children who walk to school must walk on dirt paths that run next to the streets.

Introduction

Introduction

Lakeview School is the local kindergarten through twelfth grade school in the town of Cottonwood, MN. Cottonwood Lake separates the school and the town, and the students must walk around the lake and along a busy country road to walk or bicycle to school. The combination of the lake and the busy road make it difficult and unsafe for the children to walk to school, resulting in about 25 students walking or bicycling each day.

Introduction

Winans Elementary is a kindergarten through fourth grade school in Lansing, MI. A survey of the school’s parents revealed that safety concerns were a main reason for parents not wanting their children to walk to school. Working together, township officials, county police, parents and school staff applied for and received $456,000 in Safe Routes to School (SRTS) funding from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to create a SRTS program that improved student safety.

Introduction

Introduction

In May 2003, Michigan’s Department of Transportation (DOT), in partnership with other organizations, convened a mini-conference with the theme of Designing Healthy Communities to discuss the relationship between the built environment and the ability of community residents to embrace and engage in exercise. As a result of these discussions, the Safe Routes to School movement was identified as having the potential to improve this relationship.

Introduction

Falmouth, ME, is a suburban town with a low population density, no town center and limited infrastructure for walking to school. In this town, the majority of students ride the bus to school. The elementary school complex in Falmouth is home to two schools — the Lunt School, which serves kindergarten through second grade, and the Plummer Motz School, which serves the third and fourth grade.

Introduction

Maine initiated its Safe Routes to School (ME-SRTS) programming after the development of the national program in 2005. Housed within Maine’s Department of Transportation (MaineDOT), ME-SRTS is an established program, which has thrived amid tight financial restraints. Despite these restraints, MaineDOT successfully secured a $200,000 state bond to supplement the national Safe Routes to School funding.