2009 James L. Oberstar SRTS Award
Applications Open for 2009 Oberstar Safe Routes to School Award
June 3, 2009
CHAPEL HILL — The National Center for Safe Routes to School is now accepting applications for the 2009 James L. Oberstar Safe Routes to School Award. The deadline for applications is July 15, 2009. To access the award application and criteria, please visit www.saferoutesinfo.org/oberstar.
The Oberstar Award is given annually by the National Center for Safe Routes to School to an exemplary Safe Routes to School program in the United States. The 2009 Oberstar Award will recognize outstanding achievement by a school or community in conducting a SRTS program that benefited from the Federal SRTS funding awarded by its State. The Award specifically will recognize a school with a Safe Routes to School program that has achieved success while overcoming challenges in implementing and/or sustaining the program.
“We realize that programs with outstanding achievements have had to find ways to address local challenges,” says Lauren Marchetti, Director of the National Center for Safe Routes to School. “We want to recognize current issues affecting our schoolchildren and how schools are dealing with these issues. We ask the applicants to describe how Safe Routes to School addressed any type of adversity or challenge – in their own terms and within the realities of their own environments.”
The award is named for Congressman Oberstar (D-MN) to honor his dedication to American schoolchildren as the pioneer for the National Safe Routes to School Program. Oberstar, current Chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, sponsored the Safe Routes to School legislation that strives to create safe settings to enable more parents and children to walk and bicycle to school.
States have announced funding for more than 5,200 schools and communities throughout the U.S. to conduct Safe Routes to School programs as a way to meet the challenges posed by safety, health and environmental concerns.
Bear Creek Elementary School, in Boulder, Colorado, received the 2008 Oberstar SRTS Award for Outstanding Local Program. The school is one of the first in the country to have walking school buses throughout the school year. Parent volunteers keep track of students’ travel through monthly tallies, and Kent Cruger, principal at Bear Creek Elementary, challenges students daily with his own examples of car-free travel.
In 2007, the Oberstar Award recognized the efforts of State Departments of Transportation in implementing Safe Routes to School programs from the ground up. The Michigan Department of Transportation received the Oberstar SRTS Award for its quick start up of a statewide program, and Delaware DOT received a special recognition for its staff’s skillful problem-solving which allowed for smooth implementation by local communities.
Organizations that promote pedestrian and bicycle safety offer their expertise in reviewing the applications received by the National Center for Safe Routes to School. America Walks, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Governors Highway Safety Association, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the National Center for Bicycling and Walking and Toole Design Group all were among the organizations that assisted the National Center for Safe Routes to School in the 2008 selection process.
In July 2005, Congress passed federal legislation that established a national Safe Routes to School program. The program dedicated a total of $612 million towards Safe Routes to School from 2005 to 2009. These funds are made available to individual States to develop and administer Safe Routes to School Programs through the Department of Transportation.
Established in May 2006 through funding from the Federal Highway Administration, the National Center for Safe Routes to School assists communities in enabling and encouraging children to safely walk and bicycle to school. The Center strives to equip Safe Routes to School programs with the knowledge and technical information to implement safe and successful strategies. The Center is located at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.
For more information, contact Raquel Rivas at (919) 962-5835, rivas@hsrc.unc.edu or Pam Barth at (919)962-8717, barth@hsrc.unc.edu.
Please go to www.saferoutesinfo.org/oberstar to fill out an online application. Please pass this information along to local contacts who are implementing Safe Routes to School programs in your community.
