(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
The City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) wants to start the Safe Routes to School season with a bang. This Saturday (April 7th) they’ll host a free event at Russell Academy School in northeast Portland with bike repair classes, activities for kids of all ages, free lunch, and a community bike ride.
Portland has a lot to celebrate when it comes to Safe Routes to School. With transportation safety a top priority by Mayor Sam Adams since he took over PBOT as commissioner back in 2004, the amount of Portland Public Schools involved with the Safe Routes program has skyrocketed. In recent years, PBOT’s commitment to building a network of family-friendly residential streets known as Neighborhood Greenways, has dovetailed perfectly with their Safe Routes work (Beach School in North Portland being a good example).
A chart shared at the recent Transportation Safety Summit shows how Neighborhood Greenways and Safe Routes have grown in tandem:
What’s impressive about that chart on the left is that PBOT has more than doubled the amount of Neighborhood Greenways with less than 2% of the transportation budget. And, to put the Safe Routes chart into perspective, those 80 schools represent 5,000 kids receiving instruction on how to bike and walk safely. As a result of that work, PBOT and their partners (including the BTA), have increased the number of kids walking and biking to school by 31%.
But PBOT isn’t satisfied with just teaching kids. This year they’re also offering free bike classes for parents. Through their Safe Routes program, the City will teach parents the rules of the road, offer them advice on how to bike with kids, and more. They’ve even got loaner bikes and helmets, and they will provide childcare during the classes. (For more info call Carolina at 503-823-1189 or email her at Carolina.Iraheta@portlandoregon.gov.)
Come learn more about Safe Routes to School and have fun with the family at the Safe Routes to School Spring Kickoff event: Russell Academy School (2700 NE 127th Ave) from 10 am – 2 pm on Saturday April 7th. More details in the flyer below…
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I’m really happy to see this program exists. That red bike rack in the picture, I rallied for it 19 years ago when my kids were going to
Buckman. There was no where to park your bike, and beside us, I think only 2 other families rode to school. Yeah for lots more kids riding these days!
Glencoe Elementary is working on the 2nd covered bike rack and is stoked that we will be one block off the 53rd Neighborhood Greenway.
But I am really concerned about the transport budget cuts: While we normally organize our Safe Routes School program with a lot of support from parents, cutting the federal budget for it feels like a slap in the face. I am pretty sure that the parents and teachers will go on as we did/do with the with our art, music and phys ed programs after the budget cuts, but it smarts.
I just wish that more would be done in SW Portland to make streets safer, i.e. sidewalks in crucial streets. And hills and lack of neighborhoods streets going through means that there are few neighborhood greenways. For example my daughter can’t bike to school because she would have to go via Vermont which has no sidewalk or bikelane between 30th and 35th. The small dirt path next to the street is often full of parked cars. Even I, as a confident bike commuter, don’t like to ride on this stretch, let alone have my 2nd grader ride there. PBOT keeps postboning fixing this stretch because of budget reasons.