Safe Routes to Schools

Stephanie Hopp is a fourth year student at Union College studying Biology, Environmental Science and Spanish. She is actively involved in biking, health, and environmental protection and plans to pursue a Masters in Public Health following her undergraduate education.   

What do you do when the main barrier to encouraging more students to walk and bicycle to school isn't social pressures or broken infrastructure, but a different sort of public safety hazard?  What do you do when it's not motorists, but gangs that imperil children who want to walk or bike to school?

Next time you pass by one of our community’s schools, take a look at the surrounding streets and one sobering realization will strike you: the streets around our schools are unsafe.  You’ll probably witness students hurrying across five- or six-lane roads, only to reach sidewalks where they must dodge cars whipping into the school parking lot.

After a parade of public speakers rose to speak on whether or not the L.A. City Council should overrule the Police Commission and not allow Los Angeles' red light cameras to come down, Councilman Tony Cardenas motioned to delay the final vote until Tuesday so that more City Council Members could be present.  At the time, there were eight Council Members in the room, and all ten would have had to vote for the Cardenas/Parks motion for it to pass.

Like everyone else, Safe Routes to School advocates are scaling back. Last year, a bill introduced in the Senate asked for $600 million to enhance pedestrian and bike safety near schools. “We were working in a pretty different environment,” said Margo Pedroso, deputy director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. “Everybody was talking about a $500 billion transportation bill. So we figured, we don’t know what the full bill will be in the end, but let’s go for the funding we feel like we need.”

"We're in the same place with pedestrian planning that we were on bicycle planning 15 years ago, and that's nowhere."  With that strong opening statement, Bill Rosendahl kicked off discussion of a proposal that the city create a data-driven plan for Los Angeles' Safe Streets to Schools Program.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation, LADOT, has released it's report on how it plans to spend the portion of the Measure R Local Return funds that were "set-aside" for bicycle and pedestrian programs.  You may remember that during debate on whether or not bicyclists and pedestrian safety projects deserved a set-aside some Council Members, notably Bernard Parks and Greig Smith, were worried that there wouldn't be enough projects to meet the set-aside.

Since 1997, communities around the U.S. have been celebrating Walk to School Day. In 2009, over 3,300 walking events registered their participation in Walk to School events. How many will this year? How are those of us in Southern California supporting this great event?