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Bus Stops Added to Safe Routes to School Wish List PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ryan Gray   
Friday, 03 April 2009 00:00
As the federal Safe Routes to School program seeks a funding bump in this year’s transportation reauthorization and amid cuts to transportation services at schools nationwide, the school bus industry succeeded in inserting verbiage into recommendations for the next iteration that would use funds to increase pedestrian safety to and from bus stops.

The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services sent a letter on April 2 to Deb Hubsmith, the director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, supporting the Safe Routes to School Program. While reminding that school buses remain the safest and most environmentally-friendly mode of ground transport for students, NASDPTS called safe pedestrian and bicycle lanes a “logical alternative” to school busing for those students who live within a mile or two of their respective schools and are ineligible for bus service.

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership responded by adding to its recommendations the NASDPTS language to allow up to 10 percent of infrastructure funds to be used to create safe routes to bus stops serving a significant number of school children, as long as the bus stops are outside the two-mile radius. Among other recommendations that include expanding the program to high schools and working with state and local agencies on improving roads, the partnership called for a funding increase from the current figure of $612 million over five years, which is set to expire this September when Congress takes up the transportation reauthorization, to $17 billion to ensure the most basic safety upgrades and educational programs are provided to all public elementary and middle schools.

“While our primary focus is on school bus transportation as the principal means by which children travel to school, our members are working to ensure the safety of all students who commute to school, regardless of their mode of travel,” the letter states. “We share a common goal of decreasing the number of students who travel to school in private vehicles, because it exacerbates traffic congestion, pollution, and safety problems in school areas.”

Safe Routes was signed into law in August 2005 to increase that ability of the nation’s school children to walk and bike to school as a way to battle rising childhood obesity and traffic congestion from vehicles around schools. The National Center for Safe Routes to School said 70 percent of all children at the time were being driven to school despite living on average eight blocks from campus. As of Jan. 1, the federal government had awarded nearly $371 million to state transportation departments to fund safe routes in more than 4,556 schools across all 50 states.
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