(Photo © J. Maus)
This week, Portland is playing host to the Safe Routes to School National Conference. The event is hosted by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) and they report that over 500 attendees have registered.
Attendees include biking and walking advocates, health care providers, city planners, transportation experts and a host of other professionals and practitioners. The goal is to get inspired, share best practices, and focus efforts on getting more kids to school under their own power.
In addition to three days of panel discussions, presentations and mobile workshops, the event is anchored by keynotes from major players in the bicycling and health advocacy world.
Safe Routes to Schools programs got their first big boost in the U.S. when they were funded in the 2005 transportation bill. Since then, the federal government has awarded over $350 million to the program. The money is doled out by state departments of transportation. In Portland, the City’s Bureau of Transportation manages a large program and they partner with the BTA to bring the curriculum to local elementary schools.
On Thursday, I’ll be joining City of Eugene Safe Routes coordinator Shane Rhodes for his presentation on how advocacy and organizing efforts are being impacted by the new media landscape.
Stay tuned for more coverage of this event in the coming days. Check the full schedule and learn more about the conference at SafeRoutesConference.org.
Over $350 million in 4 years. Holy crap, that’s pathetic. For a program that has so many side benefits of producing bike-able, walkable, livable neighborhoods, and we spend less than $90 million a year? We spent over $700 million in 2005 alone to develop new unmanned air combat vehicles.
In those 4 years, the US has spent $2.7 trillion on national defense (that’s 7,714 times more than they spent on Safe Routes to Schools). We’ve spent $64 billion on NASA (180x what we spent on Safe Routes to Schools). Yes, we as a nation really care about our kids – the most underfunded item is typically public education, and “Safe Routes” is an equally underfunded and underappreciated program.
I don’t know what needs to be done to address and correct this, but clearly this nation and the federal government have their priorities out of whack.
Best of luck to the conference organizers, exhibitors, presenters and attendees – you all have done a remarkable job and continue to fight for the truly important things that few people actually take the time to think or care about. You are unsung heroes, and I wish you the best.
Ahh! There’s the coverage I was looking for. Just figured their would be some pre-event coverage to make people aware of it.
Andy B
Thanks for the coverage about our Safe Routes to School National Conference in Portland. It’s really great to be here!The Safe Routes to School National Partnership has worked with Senator Harkin to introduce S1156, which would increase the amount of funding for Safe Routes to School to $600 million/year, and expand the program to high schools. Senator Merkeley (OR) is already a co-sponsor on this bi-partisan bill. We encourage everyone to go to our website, http://www.saferoutespartnership.org and then click on “national” to contact other Senators about co-sponsoring the bill. We’re aiming to get S1156 rolled into the next transportation bill to have more resources to build bike paths, bike lanes, and sidewalks, and to increase the amount of educational and encouragement programs nationwide. Thanks!