School Travel Plans--how they can help your community save money and your students improve their health

Tuesday the Missouri Safe Routes to School Network held a webinar and conversation about School Travel Plans. School Travel Plans help schools involve stakeholders across the community to develop a comprehensive look at how students get to school--by walking, bicycling, individual automobile trip, carpooling, transit, or school bus.

School Travel Plans are a new idea for Missouri, but have the potential to revolutionize the way we look at school transportation.

School transportation makes up about 10% of our nation's K-12 education budget--and costs about $790 per year for each student who is bused.

The cost is even higher for students who are driven to school in private automobiles.

School Travel Plans are a way to get your community to realize the full cost of student transportaion and start your community on the path towards encouraging more walking, bicycling, and carpooling to school--solutions that save money and improve the community's and students' health.

Tuesday's presentations, by Heather Schady of the Active Transportation Alliance and Cynthia Cantrell of Trailnet, gave a good idea of what school travel plans are, how they are implemented across the U.S. and across the world, and what the benefits and drawbacks would be for implementing school travel plans in Missouri.

• Heather's presentation--how school travel plans are implemented in Illinois.
• Cynthia's presentation--a comparative view of school travel plans across the U.S. and the world; how Missouri could implement school travel plans
• A sample school travel plan from Illinois
• School Travel Plan samples and information from Ohio:
  • Guidelines for creating a school travel plan
  • Sample School Travel Plan - Cleveland
  • Sample School Travel Plan - Amherst
• Saving Time and Money with Active School Travel (Ontario) full report or executive summary