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Missouri Safe Routes to School Information

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

The Missouri Safe Routes to School Coalition consists of more than 100 organizations, agencies, and individuals across Missouri who are working together to get more kids physically active, and remove policy barriers to safe walking and bicycling to school.

Missouri Safe Routes to School Coalition
Missouri Safe Routes to School Coalition

More about the Missouri State Safe Routes to School Coalition and details:

Announcement of the Missouri Coalition

Member organizations and individuals

To join the Missouri SRTS Network, simply email director [at] mobikefed.org

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.).

In addition to Federal SRTS funding, the Missouri Bike and Pedestrian Federation relies on support from private donors.  Currently we are seeking funding to build The Bikemobile, a mobile bike education station.

Programming - International Walk to School Day

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.
Bicycle Lesson and Safety Training (BLAST) is a new on-bike, 3-hour education program for elementary students.  The Missouri Bicycle Federation currently has funding to pilot the training in a few schools in the Kansas City are.  Eventually the BLAST will spread across the state. 

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.

School Siting

Where a school is located dramatically affects how many students can safely bike and walk to it.

Funding for the Missouri Safe Routes to School Network, 2010-2011

  • Funding for this project was provided in part by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by The Missouri Foundation for Health.  The 
  • Missouri Foundation for Health is a philanthropic organization whose vision is to improve the 
  • health of the people in the communities it serves. 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by the Incarnate Word Foundation. 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
  • Services’ Region VII Office of Minority Health. 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Kansas City 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. 
  • Louis 
  • Funding for this project was provided in part by the Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis 
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