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Missouri Safe Routes to School Information

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Safe Routes to School is a national program to get more students walking and bicycling to school.  Funding is available to cities and school districts for infrastacture projects like sidewalk construction, as well as educational and encouragment programs.

Missouri Safe Routes to School Coalition email list - join the mailing list of Missourians involved in Safe Routes to School initiatives.  Network, share ideas, and keep up on what's going on around the state.

Missouri State Network

Missouri is one of nineteen states that recently received funding to create state-wide networks to help communinites leverage federal funding, get more kids phsyically active, and remove policy barriers to safe walking and bicycling to school.

More about the Missouri State Safe Routes to School Network

Announcement of Missouri's selection

Member organizations and individuals

Funding

Safe Routes funding is distributed through state Departments of Transportation, and appllications are normally accepted once per year.  Successful applications require close collaboration with the school district, city government, law enforcement, parents, and community groups. Most SRTS applications include both activities (promoting and encouraging safe walking and bicycling) and infrastructure (bike racks, sidewalks, crosswalks, etc.).

MoDOT Safe Routes to School page

Programming

Walk/Bike to School Day is a great way to get kids out and active and build community spirit. It doesn't really take any money, just some time and planning. National Walk/Bike to School Day/Week/Month are in October every year, but you can plan your own local Walk/Bike to School Day whenever you like. Many schools do it once each Fall and again each Spring. Everything you need to know to get started is outlined in these Walk/Bike to School Day materials generously provided by PedNet.
How to plan and execute a Walk/Bike to School Day in your own school.

Additional resources

We urge all interested organizations and schools to join the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. The Partnership also has an excellent page explaining what Safe Routes to School is.

TrailNet (St. Louis) has an excellent summary and list of resources for Safe Routes to School. Note especially their "Safe Routes Heros"--great examples.

The Safe Routes to School Toolkit (5 meg PDF). This toolkit, published by the U.S. Department of Transportation and NHTSA, summarizes the ideas and experience of successful pilot Safe Routes to Schools programs in the U.S. It is full of good ideas about how to get started with Safe Routes and how to make it work. The best single resource telling how to start and run a Safe Routes to School program in a community.

The National Safe Routes to School Clearinghouse is charged with developing a centralized source of information on successful Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs and strategies. One the site you will find information on how to start and sustain a Safe Routes to School program, case studies of successful programs as well as many other resources for training and technical assistance. Particularly helpful is a page with resources for getting your local SRTS program up and running, walkability and bikeability checklists, curriculums, and so on, and a page with information on available SRTS training programs.

I Walk to School.org--international Walk to School web site.

Walk to School USA

Getting started with Safe Routes to School from the National Center for Bicycling and Walking.

Safe Routes to Schools really works--the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, which sponsored one of the first Safe Routes to School programs in the U.S., found these changes in just two years of their Safe Routes to Schools program:

* Children walking to school went from 14% to 23% * Children biking to school doubled from 7% to 15% * Children carpooling increased from 11% to 21% * Children arriving alone in a car shrank from 62% to 38%

The Federal Highway Administration's page about the new federally funded Safe Routes program.