Kids Get Safer, Greener Routes to School

The North Carolina Department of Transportation is better known for its highway-building work than for its green transportation efforts. So the department deserves a pat on the back -- as do many U.S. state departments of transportation -- for efforts to get more kids walking or riding bikes to public school in the state.

According to the Safe Routes to School Web site, Congress provided $612 million in 2005 for the federal effort to get kids walking and riding bikes to school. Communities in all 50 states are now using this funding to construct new bike lanes, pathways and sidewalks, as well as to launch Safe Routes to School education, promotion and enforcement campaigns in elementary and middle schools. The demand for the program far outreaches the funding available. By making it safe, convenient and fun for children to walk and bicycle to and from school, the group hopes to help communities find solutions to traffic congestion, poor air quality and high rates of childhood obesity and related diseases.

North Carolina state transportation officials are doling out more than $1.1 million in grants to six projects in the Charlotte region designed to get more children walking or riding bicycles to school, according to an article by Steve Lyttle in the Charlotte Observer.

The money going to Charlotte is part of more than $3.6 million in grants given to the state's communities through the Safe Routes to School Program.

In North Carolina, the projects will include building sidewalks or greenways, and installing school zone signs, bicycle racks and pedestrian signals, Lyttle writes. Some of the grants will be used to start pedestrian and bicycle safety programs.

“Just one generation ago, it was common for students to walk or bike to school,” the program's coordinator, Sarah O'Brien, told Lyttle. “These projects will not only help get us back to that quality of life in our neighborhoods, but they can provide an economic boost to local agencies.”

Photo courtesy of MoBikeFed, via Flickr