MOVE UP TO BE HEALTHY AND HAPPY: Safe Routes to School Concept

The safe routes to school concept started in Denmark in the mid-1970s, when Denmark was cited as having Europe’s highest child pedestrian accident rate. This prompted the City of Odense to start a pilot program in which all 45 of its schools identified specific road dangers. The city created a network of pedestrian and bicycle paths, narrowed roads, and established traffic islands.

For the past 25 years, approx. 80% of all children in Odense have walked or bicycled to school and in the past 2 decades the number of injured school children in Odense has decreased 30 to 40%. After Denmark's program caught on, other programs began in Great Britain and Canada in the 1990s. The Bronx, a borough of NY City, started the first SRTS project in the U.S. in 1997 and in that same year, the State of Florida implemented a pilot program.

This program approaches a major health factor that is highly needed- physical activity. Unfortunately, many kids today are not getting the physical activity that they need. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that of children aged 9 to 13 years old, 62% do not participate in any organized physical activity and 23% do not engage in any free-time physical activity outside of school hours. Less active children are more likely to be overweight. So while kids are getting less activity, the proportion of overweight children has been increasing dramatically.

Overweight children have an increased risk of:

• Type 2 Diabetes

• Low self esteem

• Aggravating existing asthma

• Sleep apnea

• Decreased physical functioning

• Many other negative emotional & physical effects

So, the promotion of safe walking and bicycling is an ideal strategy to increase physical activity among children. It does not require special skills or expensive equipment, making it do-able for most of the population, including those that may not have the resources or interest to participate in more formal programs such as organized sports. The trip to school is a logical place to start changing things. And that’s where Safe Routes to School programs come in.

First let’s look at the facts. Today, fewer children are walking and biking and more parents are driving. Only a generation ago, children routinely traveled around their neighborhoods either on foot or on bike. Walking and bicycling were common ways to get to school. Today, few children walk or bike- this is a major shift. And as traffic increases, parents become even more convinced that it is unsafe for their children to walk. They begin driving their children to school, thereby adding even more cars to the morning chaos.

But even the kids that live close to school are not walking or biking as much as before. While distance was the most common barrier, research from a CDC study finds that for those students living within a mile of school, 63% of 5-15 year olds walk or bike. In comparison, in 1969 almost 90% of students who lived within 1 mile walked or biked.

Safe Routes to School programs are an excellent example of the GOOD that is happening in communities. Safe Routes to School programs have two primary goals: