Safe Routes to School (SRTS)

What is Safe Routes to School (SRTS)?

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) encourages increased student physical activity through safe and active transport to and from school.^[1] SRTS promotes walking, bicycling, or other forms of active transportation among students and their families.^{[1, 2]} SRTS can include educating the community and improving the built environment to ensure safe places for children  and adolescents to walk and bike to and from school.^{[1, 2]} Key elements of SRTS include:

• City planning and engineering approaches to transportation that address built environment needs and ensure safe conditions for walking and biking
• Tools, guides, and resources to encourage participation in safe and active transport
• Educational activities for students, parents, and community members about rules of the road and traffic safety
• Enforcement approaches to encourage safety and reduce unsafe behaviors among drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians
• Evaluation activities to monitor and measure the impact of these programs. ^[3]

SRTS can be implemented at the state, community, or local school district level.^[4-6] Competitive federal funding is available through the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act or the FAST Act.^{[1, 7, 8]} Depending on existing infrastructure, SRTS may require that education, transportation, public safety, and city planning agencies coordinate their efforts.^{[1, 3, 9]} The Safe Routes to School National Partnership has produced State Report Cards detailing efforts nationwide. Program implementation that emphasizes partnerships has the ability to not only engage schools and communities, but create a cultural shift. Specifically, involvement of various stakeholders can help with multilevel planning and coordination of resources, which can help to reduce the burden on schools and their staff.^[10]

What is the public health issue?

Physical activity is an important contributor to health, and engaging in regular physical activity can improve cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, bone health, cardiovascular and metabolic health markers and body composition in children and adolescents, and reduce the risk for numerous adverse health outcomes, including hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers in adulthood.^[11] In 2008 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended that young people aged 6-17 years participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily.^[11] Physical activity also is an important factor in achieving a healthy weight and maintaining it over time. ^[11] Currently, 18.4 percent of children aged 6-11 years and 20.5 percent of adolescents age 12-19 years have obesity.^[12] Walking or bicycling for transportation increases physical activity.^[13] However, the proportion of students in grades K-8 who walk or bike to school fell from 47.7 percent in 1969 to only 12.7 percent in 2009.^[14]

What is the evidence of health impact and cost effectiveness?

SRTS programs are associated with increased active transportation, including an increase in the number of students walking or biking to and from school.^{[4, 14-18]} Over a 3-year period, a comparative analysis based upon a national sample of school SRTS programs found that SRTS was associated with:

• An increase in the percentage of students who walked to and from school from 7-8 percent to 15-16 percent ^[16]
• An increase in the percentage of students who biked to and from school from one percent to two percent ^[16]

A 2014 evaluation of state-level SRTS projects in Florida, Mississippi, Washington, and Wisconsin found that they were associated with significant increases in: active school travel (from 12.9 percent to 17.6 percent), walking (from 9.8 percent to 14.2 percent) and bicycling (from 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent).^[19] SRTS efforts can be even more important for subpopulations such as children with a disability or those that live in low-income neighborhoods.^[20]

Although the evidence for active transport overall is mixed, travel to and from school by bicycle has been associated with increased cardiorespiratory fitness levels among students.^{[18, 19,21]} By improving the environment for walking and bicycling in urban areas, SRTS could also contribute to increased physical activity among adults and reductions in injuries involving pedestrian and bicyclist collisions. ^[22-24]

An analysis in New York City found that SRTS roadway modifications such as installing new traffic and pedestrian signals, were associated with reductions in childhood and overall injury rates and were projected to result in a net societal benefit of $230 million over the 50-year useful life of the modifications.^[25]  For the sake of comparison, in 2017, the federal government allocated $835 million to the Transportation Alternatives Program, which provides funding to help local governments build bicycle and pedestrian improvements.^[26]That means that each year, the US spends seven times as much money on medical costs alone to treat people killed or injured while walking and biking than it does on preventing those deaths and injuries through putting in sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, and other infrastructure that keeps people safe.