The Montgomery County Safe Routes to School program provides Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Engineering, and Evaluation (5 E’s) to support all students. Families, faculty, and others in the school and neighborhood can join your school’s Safe Routes to School program. Together you will work on walking and biking education, promotion, and identifying safe ways to get to school.
Challenges
Strategies
The Safe Routes to School program has identified the following strategies for reducing traffic, improving air quality, and increasing the number of students walking and biking to school:
Education – Provides students the skills and information they need to be safe pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicle passengers.
Encouragement – Safe Routes to School provides training opportunities, information, and materials to promote walking and biking more frequently.
Enforcement – Increases awareness and reduces the frequency of traffic safety problems through a partnership with the Montgomery County Police Department.
Engineering – Improves walk, bike, and school bus locations for increased safety around schools. School principals can identify concerns and get help with problems such as unauthorized drop-off and pick-up areas, road crossings, speeding traffic, and other traffic issues. The Safe Routes to School traffic engineers work year round to improve safety near schools by changing and building safety features. Most improvements have been identified by your school’s Safe Routes to School team or other community-led approach.
Evaluation – MCDOT analyzes how school children get to and from school, as well as parents’ knowledge and attitude towards walking and bicycling to make sure the program is effective.
Starting a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program is an opportunity to make walking and bicycling to school safer for children and to increase the number of children who choose to walk and bicycle. On a broader level, SRTS programs can enhance children’s health and well-being, ease traffic congestion near the school, improve air quality and improve community members’ overall quality of life. Use the SRTS guide and watch the video to help you create a program at your school.
Fire Up Your Feet is a core program of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Available to any elementary and middle school (public or private) in grades K-8 nationally, Fire Up Your Feet offers free resources, an online activity tracker, a school fundraising organizer and more, all aimed at increasing physical activity before, during and after school for students, parents, school staff and teachers. To find out more, click here.
Walk Safe 3-Day Curriculum
Elementary School Students page - A variety of materials and ideas for your elementary school students. Learn more here.
Fire Up Your Feet is a core program of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Available to any elementary and middle school (public or private) in grades K-8 nationally, Fire Up Your Feet offers free resources, an online activity tracker, a school fundraising organizer and more, all aimed at increasing physical activity before, during and after school for students, parents, school staff and teachers. To find out more, click here.
Middle School Students page A variety of materials and ideas for your middle school students. Learn more here.
YOLO Walk Safe Campaign – To reduce the number of pedestrian crashes involving older teens in Montgomery County, MD, as well as to raise awareness of the risks of distracted walking and other dangerous pedestrian behaviors, the YOLO High School Pedestrian Safety Campaign and Toolkit was created. Click here to find out more!
Walk Your Way Projects – Do your students have an idea of a pedestrian safety project or program you would like launched at your school? Encourage them to apply for a Walk Your Way grant and they could receive up to $2,000 to help them bring their idea to life. Grants will be awarded to teams of high school students for creating, designing and implementing a pedestrian safety education program at their high school. Projects from previous years have ranged from painting sidewalks, to designing and distributing posters and other materials, to holding a school wide assembly. Click here for more information and to details on how to apply.
High School Students page – A variety of materials and ideas for your high school students. Learn more here.
How Walking and Biking Helps to Save the Earth
Want to know how much of an impact you’re having on the environment? Measure your impact by using the Carbon Footprint Calculator
How to Be Safe In Parking Lots