Education
- Safe Walking and Biking Education – Providing bike safety lessons to all district 4th grade students.
- Curriculum Development – Developing maps, walking, and biking lesson plans for walking and biking education.
- Other Community Events – Helping with safety events in Moscow such as Officer Lee Newbill Kid’s Safety Fair, Farmer’s Market, and Bike for Life events in May.
Encouragement
- Events – International Walk to School day, the Polar Walk, Fill the Racks!, and Officer Newbill Kid’s Safety fair.
- Promoting Walking and Biking to School – Creating “Walking School Buses”, providing incentives at school events such as reflectors, bike lights etc., Park and Walk planning around schools and Activity Punch Cards, etc.
- Map Development – Indicating safer routes to walk and bike to school, high use areas, and areas in need of safety improvements.
- Collaboration with U of I Service Learning Classes – Working with university classes and professors adds a great resource and knowledge base to different ongoing SRTS projects.
Enforcement
- Enforcement Programs – Combining partnerships with law enforcement along with community programs, such as stationing crossing guards at busy street corners to help children cross the street. Enforcement programs target unsafe driving behaviors, such as speeding. In a British study, the risk of pedestrian deaths from collisions with automobiles rose from five percent at 20 miles per hour to 45 percent at 30 miles per hour, to 85 percent at 40 miles per hour.
- Police Presence – Reinforcing safe bicycling and walking behaviors with students. A child who is stopped by a police officer for not wearing a helmet or for riding through a red light can learn a valuable lesson through a conversation or warning from a law enforcement officer.
- Community – Encouraging the presence of more “eyes on the street” to help make everyone feel safer. Drivers and cyclists alike are on their best behavior when a police officer is parked in front of a school.
Engineering
- Working with City Engineers – Making sure areas around schools and areas where children play have a priority in city and street planning.
- City Task Forces – Having a presence on city committees such as the Mobility Task Force, which decides priorities for city transportation funds.
- Grant Funding – Gaining additional grant funding for needed sidewalks and bike paths in Moscow.
- Crossing Guard Vests and Safety Equipment – Maintaining national standards to ensure more safety for everyone.
Through a community-wide approach to engineering, a wish list of capital improvements can be generated and separated into two categories: short-term improvements and long-term improvements.
Short-term improvements such as landscaping maintenance, altering the timing of traffic lights, painting crosswalks, or installing stop signs are immediate fixes which can be done on a small budget within a short time frame, often through the use of a city’s general funds.
Long-term needs such as installing sidewalks, pathways, bridges, and reconstructing intersections should be prioritized as part of the capital improvement plan for the city.
Evaluation
- Parent Surveys – Revealing why parents are driving their children to school and what changes might result in a shift in their behavior.
- Travel Tallies – Collecting data of how many students walk and bike. Tallies are collected 2 times a year.
- Travel Plans – Setting future goals and dreams, submitted to the State in 2010 by each school.
We welcome your insights, assistance, and encouragement!
With such an exciting and growing program, we need help to maintain this important effort! We welcome any interested parties to join us in making this program sustainable at your school site. Be a part of a parent-school safe route team! Help us with ideas to improve our program and in turn, your school community’s health and safety! Join the team!
Safe Routes to School 