Growing

Safe Routes to School: what parents can actually do

It is a framework, not a waiting list. Start with one route, three barriers, two other parents and a small first win.

By Dennis, from Atlanta · 4 min read

A bike bus on the way to school: adults in high-visibility vests lead a long line of kids down a neighborhood street — Photo: Oregon Department of Transportation · CC BY 2.0

“Safe Routes to School” can sound like a government program parents are supposed to wait for. It is more useful to think of it as a framework: make it safer and easier for children to walk and bike to school, then give families a structured reason to try.

The Safe Routes Partnership organizes the work around six E’s: evaluation, education, encouragement, engineering, engagement and equity. Bike skills clinics, walking school buses, bike trains and bike buses all live inside that frame.

Start with the route families actually use

Parents often begin with a general complaint: traffic around our school is terrible. That may be true, but it is hard to act on. A better starting point is specific. Which intersection feels unsafe? Where do cars block the crosswalk? Where does the bike lane disappear? Which neighborhood has 30 children who could ride if one barrier were fixed?

Walk or ride the route at school-arrival time. Take notes, take photographs from public areas, count what happens. A problem you can point to on a map is much easier for a school, a PTA or a transportation department to discuss than “the roads aren’t safe.”

Find out what already exists

Safe Routes to School programs exist in many forms: state transportation agencies, cities, counties, metropolitan planning organizations, nonprofits, school districts. Search for your state’s name plus “Safe Routes to School” and look for infrastructure grants, planning help, school travel plans, mini-grants, walk audits and local coordinators. Do this before reinventing the wheel; there may already be funding, templates or staff assigned to exactly your problem.

Programs and infrastructure are different

A bike bus can begin with little more than committed families, a route and a schedule. A protected bike lane cannot. That distinction matters, because parents can start encouragement programs quickly (a bike bus, a weekly walking group, a bike rodeo, a helmet-fit event, a route practice day) while sidewalks, crossings, traffic calming and protected lanes take years.

Both matter, and they feed each other: a successful bike bus makes infrastructure needs visible, because dozens of families start encountering the same problem at the same time.

Run a small walk or bike audit

Pick one route and bring a parent, someone from the school, a PTA member, and a local planner or Safe Routes coordinator if you can get one. Ask where people feel comfortable and where they stop feeling comfortable. What is the posted speed, and what are drivers actually doing? Can a child be seen at the crossings? Where would a group of riders wait?

Write down the three highest-priority issues. Not forty. Three.

Use events to create participation

One-day events lower the psychological barrier. Walk & Roll to School Day and Bike & Roll to School Day, coordinated nationally by the National Center for Safe Routes to School, give families a supervised, well-attended first try, and the site is open about the point: for most schools a one-day event is not enough, and the goal is ongoing activity.

A family that would never send a child out alone may happily join 25 other families for one ride. After one good ride, “we could never bike to school” becomes “could we do this on Fridays?”

Ask for a small first win

Parents sometimes go from zero to “the city needs to redesign this corridor.” Maybe it does. But your first win could be a moved crossing guard, a better bike-bus meeting point, cones on event day, vegetation trimmed at a crossing, a new bike rack, or school approval to promote a monthly ride. Small wins build the group that can ask for larger ones.

Where a bike bus fits

A bike bus is not a substitute for safe infrastructure. It is one tool: adult supervision, visibility through numbers, and a structured way for families to try biking to school. NHTSA’s route advice still applies: choose lower-traffic, slower streets where possible, because forty riders do not turn a dangerous crossing into a good one.

If you are the parent who wants to begin: find your local program, ride one likely route, name the three biggest barriers, find two other parents who care, and start one manageable thing. You do not need a title, and you do not need to become a transportation planner. Starting a bike bus is one very good version of the next step.