A Renewed Commitment to Safe Routes and Resources for Getting to Know Your Neighborhood
Walking and biking are healthy ways to get to and from school.
A critical strategy to increasing walking and biking is to add sidewalks, crosswalks, bike paths and other transportation features that make people feel safe.
This year, Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools awarded a 2-year grant of $1.26 million to advance Safe Routes to School initiatives nationwide and especially in California and the Pacific Northwest.
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership increases opportunities for people to walk and bike by advancing healthy transportation options in cities. Kaiser Permanente and the Partnership are committed to increase physical activity to improve community health.
Thanks to the award, the National Partnership will produce action-oriented engagement materials, training webinars, toolkits, and other resources to help both new and experienced practitioners start and run thriving Safe Routes to School programs.
The National Partnership aims to ignite parents and school staff to take action to start or expand Safe Routes to School programs in their communities and to use new tools and resources to maximize their impact and sustainability.
Check out these helpful, informative resources
Each of these Safe Routes to School National Partnership resources works to increase awareness and engagement for parents, school leaders and school administrators.
Let’s Go for A Walk: A Toolkit for Planning and Conducting a Walk Audit: Walk audits can be informal and casual. They can include city councilmembers and traffic engineers. In this toolkit, you’ll find the tools to hold your own walk audit that will help you achieve the goals of your community.
Get to Know Your Neighborhood With a Walk Audit: Walk audits are a great tool to gather information about street conditions, engage community members, and inform planning and traffic safety projects. Through walk audits, you can help improve walking, health and quality of life in your community!
Guide to Creating Walking Route Maps for Safe Routes to School: Walking one mile to and from school each day is two-thirds of the recommended daily physical activity for children and youth. This guide will help you create maps of recommended routes for students to walk with their families or in groups.
Please share! Find out more at @SafeRoutesNow and @ThrivingSchools.
