Keeping Our Children Safe and Healthy
Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are an evidence-based approach to address safety concerns and provide more opportunities for children to walk and bike to school or at school.
Now that schools back in session, Let’s Get Active!
Encouraging safe ways to walk to school.
In September 2015, WakeUP Wake County joined with the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (UNC-HSRC), Advocates for Health in Action and Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) to work with elementary and middle schools to improve child pedestrian safety and support walking and bicycling to school. This new initiative is funded with the generous support of the John Rex Endowment, and it will begin with model projects in five public schools selected based upon various criteria. The program also involves working with local municipalities to examine policies such as Complete Streets street design, which can improve safety for child pedestrians. Encouraging municipalities to incorporate Complete Streets into their street design efforts means more streets that are pedestrian, bicycle, car and transit friendly. Once this infrastructure is in place, it becomes much simpler for children to walk or bike to school. Another key part of the project is disseminating learnings from the five “model” schools so that other WCPSS schools can consider similar actions.
Want to learn more about Safe Routes to School? Check out this factsheet!
Wake Safe Routes to School Model Program participating schools:
- Bugg Elementary School, Southeast Raleigh
- Ligon Middle School, South of Downtown Raleigh
- Northwoods Elementary School, Cary
- Hodge Road Elementary, Knightdale
- Lincoln Heights Elementary, Fuquay-Varina